




Jil#lUrIH) 




Book_ 



IV. 



Copyright }^°- 



COPYRIGHT DEPOSn^ 



ci^e mntv uft 



iHeb. 2Dr^ ^illtt'^ 25ooftjse 



SILENT TIMES. 

MAKING THE MOST OF LIFE. 

THE EVERY DAY OF LIFE. 

THE BUILDING OF CHARACTER. 

THINGS TO LIVE FOR. 

THE STORY OF A BUSY LIFE. 

PERSONAL FRIENDSHIPS OF JESUS. 

THE JOY OF SERVICE. 

STRENGTH AND BEAUTY. 

DR. MILLER'S YEAR BOOK. 

GLIMPSES THROUGH LIFE'S WINDOWS. 

THE GOLDEN GATE OF PRAYER. 

THE HIDDEN LIFE. 

YOUNG PEOPLE'S PROBLEMS. 

THE MINISTRY OF C03MF0RT. 

COME YE APART. 

THE UPPER CURRENTS. 



25ooMrtiBf 



GIRLS; FAULTS AND IDEALS. 

YOUNG MEN; FAULTS AND IDEALS. 

SECRETS OF HAPPY HOME LIFE. 

THE BLESSING OF CHEERFULNESS. 

A GENTLE HEART. 

BY THE STILL WATERS. 

THE MARRIAGE ALTAR. 

THE SECRET OF GLADNESS. 

UNTO THE HILLS. 

LOVING MY NEIGHBOUR. 

HOW? WHEN? WHERE? 

SUMMER GATHERING. 

THE TRANSFIGURED LIFE. 

IN PERFECT PEACE. 

TO-DAY AND TO-MORROW. 



Cl^omajf §♦ Crotaiell S. Comjjanp 

JQeto port 



Wi^tv Hife 



BT 

J. R. MILLER 

AUTHOR OF 

cs," "findii^ 
"in peefect peace,'' etc. 



"7 am sick of four walls and a ceiling. 
I have need of the skyj*^ 



THOMAS Y. CROWELL & CO. 
PUBLISHERS 



-1! 



<,1 



OCT 1 laOb 

GUVS© cC ^*^* '^^' 



Copyright y 1908, hy Thomas Y, Crorvell Sf Co, 



Published, September, 1908 



AUTHOR^S WORD 



VY E do not realize half our possibilities. We 
do not more than begin to possess our inherit- 
ance. Our hills are full of gold and we only 
scratch the sand and the shallow soil on the 
surface. We live in little bungalows in the valley 
when there are splendid palaces waiting for us 
on the hilltops. Shall we not push out our tent- 
pins and get more room to live in ? 

J. R. M. 

Philadelphia, U, S. A. 



TITLES OF CHAPTERS 



I. The Wider Life Page 3 

II. Visions and Dreams 17 

III. Loyalty to Christ 31 

IV. God in Our Common Life 45 
V. The Things that are Above 61 

VI. The Inner and Outer Life 75 

VII. The Print of the Nails 89 

VIII. Influence 103 

IX. Is God Always Kind? 117 

X. Peril in Life's Changes 129 

XI. Helping by Prayer 145 

XII. Being a Comfort to Others 157 

XIII. Nevertheless Afterward 171 

XIV. The School of Life 187 
XV. Words of Life 203 

XVI. Presenting Men Perfect 217 

XVII. As I Have Loved You 231 

XVIII. The Beauty of Christ 245 

XIX. The Law of Sacrifice 261 

XX. Learning to Pray 275 



m^t Wihtv Uiz 



[1] 



^/Forbid me an easy place, 
God, in some sequestered nook, 

Apart to lie 
With folded hands, in quiet rest, 
To doze and dream, and weaker grow, 
Until I die, 

i'Give me, Lord, a task so hard. 
That all my powers shall taxed be 

To do my best. 
That I may stronger grow in toil. 
And fitted be, for service harder still, 

Until I rest, 

" This my reward — development 
From what I am, to what thou art, — 

For this I plead; 
Wrought out by being wrought upon. 
By deeds reflective, done in love. 
For those in need." 

— Charles C. Earle. 



[2] 



CHAPTER ONE 



Ci^e Wi^tv JLtfe 




E should never be content 
with a narrow Hfe. We are 
made for breadth and ful- 
ness, and we rob God when 
we fail to reach our best. 
Some people assert that 
Christianity's ideal for life is narrow. They 
say it cramps and limits us. It has no place, 
for example, for physical or intellectual de- 
velopment. It says nothing about art, music, 
science, or the many phases of human activity. 
It presents only the moral side — conscience, 
obedience to heavenly laws, spiritual attain- 
ments and achievements. 

The answer is that while Christianity may 
not definitely name the things of the intellect, 
or distinctly call men to noble achievements 
in art, in exploration, in invention, in re- 
search, in the culture of the beautiful, it 
really includes in its range everything that 
[3] 



Cl^e W^tv Uit 



will add to the fulness and completeness of 
life and character. It excludes nothing but 
what is sinful — disobedience to law — im- 
purity, selfishness, uncharity, and these only 
narrow and debase, do not broaden and en- 
rich life. It includes " whatsoever things are 
true, whatsoever things are honorable, what- 
soever things are just, whatsoever things 
are pure, whatsoever things are lovely, what- 
soever things are of good report." Is this a 
narrow life? 

Our Christian faith places no limitation what- 
ever on life except what would mar, blot, or 
debase the character. Japanese horticultu- 
rists have a trick of stunting trees, and the 
world is full also of stunted men, only dwarfs 
of what God made them to be. But the call 
of Christianity is always for whole men, men 
reaching up to their best, and out to their 
broadest in every way. The Chinese bind the 
feet, some nations mutilate the face, others 
repress and crush the feelings, affections, and 
desires, but Christianity seeks the fullest de- 
velopment of every power and capacity of 
[4] 



Ci^e Wintt life 



the being. Jesus Christ, our pattern, would 
have us become full-grown men. 
As leaders of others, as teachers, as follow- 
ers of Christ, our influence should be toward 
the enriching and broadening of lives. A re- 
cent book is dedicated to a distinguished 
scholar and teacher, who is designated as an 
enlarger of human lives. There is no way in 
which we can prove ourselves better friends 
to others than by such influence over them as 
will make their lives fuller, truer, more loving, 
more helpful. One writes : 

^^ My life is a brief, brief thing, 
I am here jor a little space. 
And while I stay, 
I would like, if I may. 
To brighten and better the place.^' 

There are many persons whose lives are small. 
They never grow into strength and beauty. 
It is said that Michael Angelo once paid a 
visit to the studio of Raphael, when the artist 
was absent. On an easel there was a canvas 
with the outline of a human figure, beautiful, 
[5] 



m)t wiiitt life 



but too small. Michael Angelo took a brush 
and wrote under the figure the word " Am- 
plius " — larger. The same word might be 
written under many lives. They may be good 
and beautiful, but they are too small. They 
need to be enlarged. They have not sufficient 
height or breadth. They do not realize God's 
thought for them. They do not mean enough 
in the world. 

There are many people who live in only one 
room, so to speak. They are intended to live 
in a large house, with many rooms, rooms of 
the mind, rooms of the heart, rooms of taste, 
imagination, sentiment, feeling. But these up7 
per rooms are left unused, while they live in 
the basement. 

A story is told of a Scotch nobleman who, 
when he came into possession of his estates, 
set about providing better houses for his 
people, who were living huddled together in 
single-roomed cottages. So he built for them 
pretty, comfortable houses. But in a short 
time each family was living, as before, in one 
room, and letting out the rest of the house. 
[6] 



Ci^e mux Utt 



They did not know how to Hve in larger, bet- 
ter ways. The experiment satisfied him that 
people could not be really benefited by any- 
thing done for them merely from the outside. 
The only true way to help them is from 
within, in their minds and hearts. Horace 
Bushnell put it in an epigram — " The soul 
of improvement is the improvement of the 
soul." It is not a larger house that is needed 
for a man, but a larger man in the house. A 
man is not made larger by giving him more 
money, better furniture, finer pictures, richer 
carpets, an automobile, but by giving him 
knowledge, wisdom, good principles, strength 
of character; by teaching him love. A mis- 
sionary took with him to some northern 
region a vine, which he planted. During the 
short summer it was put outside, and in the 
winter it was kept indoors. For ten years it 
lived, but grew only three feet and never put 
forth a blossom. The missionary was then 
sent to a southern clime and transplanted the 
vine. There it grew rapidly and bore much 
fruit. There are people who live in a chill 
[7] • 



m^t Wintt life 



atmosphere, and their lives amount to almost 
nothing. If we can give them summer warmth 
their lives will expand into beauty and fruit- 
fulness. 

Some lives are narrow by reason of the way 
their circumstances have dwarfed them. We 
may not say, however, that poverty neces- 
sarily has this effect, for many who are poor, 
who have to live in a little house, with few 
comforts and no luxuries, live a life that is 
large and fr^e, wide as the sky in its glad- 
ness ; while on the other hand there are those 
who haVe everything of an earthly sort that 
heart could desire, yet whose lives are nar- 
row. 

There are some people to whom life has been 
so heavy a burden that they are ready to drop 
by the way. They pray for health, and in- 
stead illness comes with its suffering and its 
expense. Their work is hard. They have to 
live in continual discomfort. Their associa- 
tions are uncongenial. There seems no hope 
of relief. When they awake in the morning, 
their first consciousness is of the load they 
[8] 



m^t WiUt life 



must take up and begin again to carry. Their 
disheartenment has continued so long that it 
has grown into hoplessness. The message to 
such is, " Enlarge the place of thy tent." No 
matter how many or how great are the rea- 
sons for discouragement, a Christian should 
not let bitterness enter his heart and blind 
his eyes so that he cannot see the blue sky 
and the shining stars. 

Looked at from an earthly view-point, could 
any life have been more narrow in its condi- 
tion than Christ's? Think who he was — the 
Son of God, sinless, holy, loving, infinitely 
gentle of heart. Then think of the life into 
which he came — the relentless hate that was 
about him, the bitter enmity that pursued him, 
the rejection of love that met him at every 
step. Think of the failure of his mission, as 
it seemed, and his betrayal and death. Yet he 
was never discouraged. He never grew bit- 
ter. 

How did he overcome the narrowness? The 

secret was love. The world hated him, but he 

loved on. His own received him not, rejected 

[9] 



m^t mhn titt 



him, but his heart changed not toward them. 
Love saved him from being embittered by the 
narrowness. This is the one and the only 
secret that will save any life from the nar- 
rowing influence of the most distressing cir- 
cumstances. Widen your tent. Make room in 
it for Christ and for your neighbor; and as 
you make place for enlargement, the enlarge- 
ment will come. 

^' Make channels for the streams of love. 
Where they may broadly run; 
And love has overflowing streams 
To fill them every one. 

^^ But if at any time we cease 
Such channels to provide , 
The very founts of love for us 
Will soon be parched and dried. 

'^ For we must share, if we would keep 
That blessing from above; 
Ceasing to give, we cease to have — 
Such is the law of love,^^ 

There was a woman who had become embit- 
tered by a long experience of sickness and of 
[10] 



Ci^e Wititv mt 



injustice and wrong, until she was shut up 
in a prison of hopelessness. Then, by reason 
of the death of a relative, a little motherless 
child was brought to her door. The door was 
opened most reluctantly, at first ; the child 
was not warmly welcomed. Yet when she was 
received, Christ entered with her, and at once 
the dreary home began to grow brighter. 
The narrowness began to be enlarged. Other 
human needs came and were not turned away. 
In blessing others, the woman was blessed 
herself. To-day there is no happier home than 
'hers. Try it if you are discouraged. Begin 
to serve those who need your love and min- 
istry. Encourage some other disheartened 
one, and your own discouragement will pass 
away. Brighten another's lonely lot, and your 
own will be brightened. 

Some lives are made narrow by their limita- 
tions in opportunity. Some men seem not to 
have the same chance that others have. They 
may be physically incapacitated for holding 
their place in the march of life. Or they may 
have failed in business after many years of 

[11] 



Cl^e WiUt life 



hard toil, and may lack the courage to begin 
again. They may have been hurt by folly or 
sin, and do not seem able to take the flights 
they used to take. There are some people in 
every community who, for one cause or an- 
other, do not seem to have a chance to make 
much of their life. But whatever it may be 
that shuts one in a narrow environment, as 
in a little tent, the gospel of Christ brings a 
message of hope and cheer. Its call ever is, 
" Enlarge the place of thy tent, and let them 
stretch forth the curtains of thy habita- 
tions." 

There is danger that some of us overdo our 
contentment. We regard as an impassable 
wall certain obstacles and hindrances which 
God meant to be to us only inspirers of cour- 
age. Difficulties are not intended to stay our 
efforts, but to arouse us to our best. We give 
up too easily. We conclude that we cannot 
do certain things, and think we are submit- 
ting to God's will in giving up without try- 
ing to overcome, when in fact we are only 
showing our supineness. We suppose that our 
[12] 



m^t wmv life 



limitations are part of God's plan for us, and 
that we have only to accept them and make 
the best of them. In some cases this is true — 
there are barriers that are impassable — ^but 
in many cases God wants us to gain the vic- 
tory over the limitations. His call is, " En- 
large the place of thy tent." Hard conditions 
do not necessarily make a life a failure. 
" What do you raise here, from these rocks .f^ " 
asked a traveller in New England. " We raise 
men," was the answer. 

If there can be no physical victory over 
physical handicaps, there can be always at 
least a moral victory. We should never ac- 
cept a captivity that shuts our soul in any 
prison. Our spirit may be free though our 
bodily life is shut up in a prison of circum- 
stances. An English writer tells of two birds, 
caught and put into cages side by side. One 
of them began to resist and struggle, flying 
against the wires of its cage in vain efforts to 
escape. The other quietly accepted its cap- 
tivity, and, flying up on a bar, began to sing, 
filling all the place about with glad songs. 
[13] 



Ci^e Watt life 



The former bird was a captive indeed, shut 
up in a narrow, hopeless prison. The other 
turned its captivity into widest liberty and 
its narrow cage into a palace of victory. We 
say the starling acted very foolishly, and 
that the canary showed true wisdom. Which 
course do we take when we find ourselves shut 
up in any narrow, imprisoned life.^ 
Life should never cease to widen. People talk 
about the " dead line " — it used to be fifty 
years ; now it probably is under that. After 
crossing that line, they tell us, a man cannot 
do his best. It is not true — at least it should 
not be true. A man ought to be at his best 
during the last years of his life. He ought 
always to be enlarging the place of his tent 
until its curtains are finally pushed out into 
the limitless spaces of immortality. 



[14] 



M^ion^ anD ^ream^ 



[15] 



^^ The world wants men, large-hearted , manly men; 
Men who shall join its chorus, and prolong 
The psalm of labor and the psalm of love. 
The age wants heroes — heroes who shall dare 
To struggle in the solid ranks of truth: 
To clutch the monster error by the throat; 
To bear opinion to a loftier seat; 
To blot the error of impression out, 
And lead a universal freedom in. 
And heaven wants souls — fresh and capacious souls 
To taste its raptures, and expand, like flowers. 
Beneath the glory of its central sun. 
It wants fresh souls, not lean and shrivelled ones; 
It wants fresh souls — my brother, give it thine! ^' 



[16] 



CHAPTER TWO 




E owe everything that is 
good and beautiful to our 
visions. They lead us ever 
to higher things. They 
show us glimpses of char- 
acter, of attainment, of 
achievement, beyond what we have yet 
reached, and the beauty or the excellence 
visioned before us starts in us a discontent 
with our present state and a longing to climb 
to the loftier heights. An artist has a vision 
of something lovely and paints it on his can- 
vas or hews it out of his block of marble. An 
inventor has in his mind a dream of his in- 
vention, something which he believes will 
prove a boon to the world. He thinks and 
broods, and at last gives the fruit of his 
thinking and brooding a form that makes it 
practical. 

Columbus was a dreamer. It was the belief 
[17] 



m^t Wihtt life 



in his day that there was nothing beyond the 
sea. On the pillars of Hercules they wrote Ne 
plus ultra. But Columbus had a vision of a 
continent beyond and heard the bidding, " Go 
and find it." Wise men laughed at his dream, 
but he could not put it out of his mind, and, 
sailing forth, he found a new world. Thus all 
progress and all advancement have h^een 
achieved. Men have dreamed and followed 
their visions and made them real. 
One of the promised results of the coming of 
the Holy Spirit was the bringing of larger, 
fuller life. " Your young men shall see visions, 
and your old men shall dream dreams." It 
is supposed that old men do not dream any 
more. Their attainments and achievements 
are all in the past. But this need not be so. 
If this world were all, if death ended every- 
thing, there would be little use for the old to 
dream. They cannot do much in the small 
margin of life left to them. But death is not 
the end of life; it goes on beyond, infinitely 
and forever. St. Paul was an old man, but he 
was as full of hopes and enthusiasms as if he 
' [18] 



"Bi^iom and ^ttam^ 

had been in the midst of youth. He was old 
when he described his scheme of life as for- 
getting things behind and reaching forward 
to things before. 

Let not the old man think for a moment that 
his work is done, though he has lived his three- 
score and ten years, even though he be physi- 
cally feeble. Let him keep his heart young, 
though his hairs be white. Let him keep his 
enthusiasms, though he be feeble and frail in 
body. Let him keep love in his heart, love for 
people, love for young people and children, 
sympathy with human need. Let him keep 
interested in others, not allowing himself to 
withdraw from active life, and then in a little 
while shrink away into a shrivelled shell of 
decrepitude and uselessness. 
Old people with ripe experience can be of 
great service to younger people. " Old men 
for counsel." Let the old people feel that 
their work is not yet done, that the world 
still needs them, that they have no right to 
lapse into indolence. " Your old men shall 
dream dreams " — dreams of beauty, of help- 
[19] 



Ci^e ^iDet: Life 



fulness, of service — and then go out to make 
their dreams come true. 

Sometimes we hear it said that miracles 
have ceased. This may be true in a sense, but 
it is not true that communication between 
heaven and earth has ceased. The ladder has 
not been taken down. God still puts into 
men's hearts inspirations, desires, hopes, 
longings. Every case of human need or 
distress that makes its appeal to us is a 
heavenly vision, calling us to do an act of 
kindness. 

There is a pleasant legend of St. Martin. He 
was a soldier. It was in the depth of winter. 
One bitter night a beggar, scantily clad, 
asked alms of the soldier. All he had was his 
soldier's cloak. Drawing his sword he cut the 
cloak in half, gave one part of it to the poor 
man and was content himself with the other 
part. That night he had a wondrous vision. 
He beheld Christ on his throne. Looking 
closely, he saw that the King in his glory was 
wearing the half of the cloak which he had 
given to the beggar that night. Amazed, he 
[20] 



heard the King say, " This hath Martin 
given to me." 

Then there is a httle story which tells of 
one who did not follow the vision of need. 

'^ This morning, as I hurried to my task, 
I met a crying child, I did not stay 
My steps to dry his tears, nor stop to ask 
The reasons lohy he wept, for duty lay 
So clear before me that I gave no thought 
To blinder duties that to me were brought. 
Indifferent, I hurried on my way, 

'^ To-night when I met Jesus on my knees , 
And asked what I might do for him, he said, 
^ What of the child I sent to you to-day — 
The weeping baby, to be comforted f ' 
Amazed, I answered, ^ Surely unto thee 
I would give all; no tear was wiped for me,' 
The dear Lord cried, ^ My little children's tears 
Are more than all the guerdon of the years.' 

'^ Ashamed, confounded, that I did not know 
'Twas Jesu^' child, and in the baby see 
My blessed Master coming unto me, 
I begged him but to try me once again. 
[21] 



m^t WiUt life 



^ Give me the desert, with its thirst and pain: 
ril follow thee in loving sympathy,' 
But oh! the child was gone: I did not dream 
My Lord could pass unrecognized, unseen.^' 

Every case of suffering, of need, of sorrow, 
of which we learn is to us a vision of Christ 
himself in need, appealing to us for help. 
If we do the kindness that is required, we 
will be ministering to the Master himself. 
Visions come to us also in beautiful lives that 
we see and know. We all know some one who, 
every time we meet him, makes us want to live 
better. He does not exhort us in words, does 
not chide us with criticisms, but there is 
something in his mere presence, something 
that starts in us a vision of gentleness, of 
peace, of purity, which calls us to a truer, 
more beautiful life. One said of another, 
" When I meet him on the street, the air is 
sweeter, and life means more to me after- 
wards." There are people in whose presence 
rude men grow gentle, and profane men 
would not dare utter an oath. There are 
[22] 



those who never have a reproof to utter or a 
sharp word even for men who have no regard 
for God, and yet in whose presence the worst 
men become subdued and quiet. Every rarely 
beautiful Christian life starts in all hearts 
a heavenly vision which is followed uncon- 
sciously by those who see it. We do not know 
what we may be to each other. We do not 
know how our characters act on other lives. 
If we realized the meaning of our influence we 
would never dare live carelessly. One writes, 

"/ would he true J for there are those who tru^t 
me; 
I would he "pure, for there are those who careJ^ 

"Your young men shall see visions." When 
the divine Spirit fills our heart, we have 
glimpses of a life we have not yet reached. 
The coming of the Spirit is to our lives what 
the coming of spring is to the fields and 
gardens after winter. It brings an awaken- 
ing, a quickening. But there are unheavenly 
visions as well as those that are pure and 
spiritual. If it is the Holy Spirit that per- 
[23] 



m^t mntt uft 



vades our lives, our visions are holy. If it is 
the spirit of evil that is swaying us our 
visions will be debasing. 

A vision of the world's need of Christ inspires 
men with the missionary spirit. There is a 
tendency among too many Christian people 
to turn away from evil men as if nothing 
could be done for them. But these are the 
very persons the sight of whom should most 
stir our compassion. A thoughtful man was 
pacing the docks at Liverpool and beheld 
great quantities of dirty waste material lying 
in unregarded heaps. He looked at the un- 
promising piles and then in his thought saw 
finished fabrics and warm and welcome gar- 
ments made from them. Ere long the vision 
had come true and the outcast stuff began 
to be wrought into beautiful garments. When 
we look upon an outcast life, however hope- 
less it may be, we should think not of what 
it is, but of its possibilities, what it may be- 
come — a child of God, wearing the divine 
beauty. This vision will impel us to seek the 
life that is lost. 

[U] 



Wi^ion^ and J^ream^ 

Some people dream beautiful things and yet 
never make them real. Some seem to think 
that piety will take the place of toil and self- 
denying struggle in achieving their dreams. 
There is much very shallow and empty talk 
about praying. You cannot pray yourself into 
a noble character. You cannot pray for the 
relief of some distress and have the distress 
driven away. You cannot pray a vision into 
a worthy reality. You cannot pray a beauti- 
ful dream into a fine achievement. Sometimes 
prayer is not the duty. Dr. Adam Clarke, the 
great commentator, was an early riser. A 
young preacher was talking to him about 
this habit and said he was sorry he could not 
do the same. He wanted the Doctor to tell 
him how he did it. " Do you pray about it? " 
piously inquired the young man. " No," said 
Dr. Clarke, " I get up." Some people who 
never get on with their ideals want others 
who have learned to live nobly to tell them 
how they do it. " How did you learn to live 
contentedly, without worry, without fretting, 
without fussing or anxiety ? I suppose prayer 
[25] 



Cl^e Wintv life 



must be the secret." The answer is, " No ; I 

do it." 

Prayer is always sacred. It has mighty 

power. 

^^ More things are vorought by prayer 
Than this world dreams of.^' 

feut there are some things which prayer will 
not accomplish — you must do them. God 
never works miracles in doing indolent peo- 
ple's work for them. Neither does he answer 
prayer for the realizing of one's fine dreams. 
Pray, certainly, for everything, but your 
own hands must work out your dreams. When 
an artist has a noble vision that he wants to 
see come into a great painting or a splendid 
statue, does he get down on his knees and 
pray his vision into the form ? No : he spends 
months, perhaps years, in patient work, and 
at last he sees his ideal wrought into noble 
form. 

When the Holy Spirit touches a human life 

glory springs up in it. It becomes capable of 

great things. It rises to new power. We know 

[26] 



what different men Pentecost made of the 
peasant disciples. From being timid, fearful, 
afraid of a sneer, wilting under . a girl's 
taunt, frightened by a jibe, they became In 
an hour brave, lion-hearted men, who feared 
nothing. From being without eloquence, with- 
out fine culture, they became at once mighty 
men filled with a new power by which they 
turned the world upside down. 
Emerson said, " What I need is some one to 
make me do what I can." Few of us are doing 
what we might do. We are not reaching up to 
our best in anything. What we need is some 
one who will make us do what we can. It ought 
to be a parent's constant effort with a child. 
It ought to be a teacher's work with a pu- 
pil. It should be the aim of our friend. Some 
people seem to think that friendship does its 
best when it pampers, shelters and protects. 
But the really best that any friend can do 
for you is to inspire and quicken you, to put 
visions of highest beauty into your brain, to 
start gleams of nobleness in your heart and 
to make you do what you can. 
[27] 



Ci^e WiUt life 



God has given us these wonderful lives of 
ours, but we do not know how to use them. 
We touch them with our hands. We try edu- 
cation. We submit them to our friends. Won- 
derful indeed are these brains, these hearts, 
these minds, these hands. But we never find 
or bring out the best that is in us until we 
let the divine Spirit breathe on us. When we 
are filled with the Spirit, our young men shall 
see visions, and our old men shall dream 
dreams. Then our lives shall reach their 
best. 



[28] 



Jlotaltt to €W^t 



[29] 



'// thou, my Christ, to-day 
Shouldst speak to me and say: 
What battles hast thou fought for me f 
Show me thy scars; I fain would see 
Lovers depth of victory, 

^If thou shouldst speak, my Christ , 
My Leader and my King, 
And bid me lay my wounds in sight, 
The scars borne just for thee in fight, 
What love-scars could I bring f^' 



[30] 



CHAPTER THREE 



Horaltt to Ci^rtjst 




OYALTY to Christ begins 
in the heart. We must love 
him supremely. " He that 
loveth father or mother 
more than me is not worthy 
of me; and he that loveth 
son or daughter more than me is not worthy 
of me." Nothing makes worthy discipleship if 
love be lacking. In these days Christian activ- 
ity is emphasized and required. Never was the 
church of Christ as active as it is now. This 
is beautiful. But with all our activity we may 
fear lest we are not loving Christ as we 
should. 

In one of the epistles to the seven churches 
Jesus commends the church of Ephesus for 
many things — ^its works, its toil, its patience 
and that it could not bear evil men. " But," 
he adds, " I have this against thee, that thou 
didst leave thy first love." With all its activ- 
[31] 



Cl^e Winn tiit 



ity and self-sacrificing service, it did not love 
him as it used to do. Dr. G. Campbell Mor- 
gan tells of a friend of his who had a little 
daughter that he dearly loved. They were 
great friends, the father and daughter, and 
were alw^ays together. But there seemed to 
come an estrangement on the child's part. 
The father could not get her company as 
formerly. She seemed to shun him. If he 
wanted her to walk with him, she had some- 
thing else to do. The father was grieved and 
could not understand what the trouble was. 
His birthday came and in the morning his 
daughter came to his room, her face radiant 
with love, and handed him a present. Opening 
the parcel, he found a pair of exquisitely 
worked slippers. 

The father said, " My child, it was very 
good of you to buy me such lovely slippers." 
" O father," she said, " I did not buy them 
— I made them for you." Looking at her he 
said, " I think I understand now what long 
has been a mystery to me. Is this what you 
have been doing the last three months ? " 
[32] 



lotaltt to Ci^rtjst 



" Yes," she said, " but how did you know how 
long I had been at work on them? " He said, 
" Because for three months I have missed 
your company and your love. I have wanted 
you with me, but you have been too busy. 
These are beautiful slippers, but next time 
buy your present and let me have you all the 
days. I would rather have m.y child herself 
than anything she could make for me." 
We are in danger of being so busy In the 
Lord's work that we cannot be enough with 
the Lord in love's fellowship. He may say to 
us, " I like your works, your toils, your ser- 
vice, but I miss the love you gave me at 
first." There is real danger that we get so 
busy In striving to be active Christians, so 
absorbed In our tasks and duties, our efforts 
to bring others Into the church, that Christ 
himself shall be less loved and shall miss our 
communing with him. Loyalty means first of 
all heart devotion./ Has Christ really the 
highest place In your heart ?^ It Is not your 
work he wants most — It Is you. It is beau- 
tiful to do things for him — it is still more 
[33] 



Ci^e WiUv Life 



beautiful to make a home for him in your 
heart. A young man, at great cost, has 
brought from many countries the most beau- 
tiful materials he could find and has built as 
a memorial to his dead wife an exquisite little 
chapel. Only a few men could do anything so 
rare, so lovely. But the poorest of us can en- 
throne our loved ones in our hearts, and the 
poorest of us can please Christ even more 
by making a little sanctuary in our hearts 
for him. 

Then there must be loyalty of life. If there 
be true, supreme love in the heart, there 
should be a shining character. Here again we 
need to guard against devotion to the work 
and service of Christ while in the life the 
world sees there are so many flaws and blem- 
ishes that the impression is not to the honor 
of Christ. He is very patient with our infirm- 
ities and our stumblings. If he were not, who 
of us ever could hope to please him.'^ We are 
inexperienced, mere learners, at first. We mis- 
spell our words. We blunder in our grammar. 
We sing out of tune. Some of us are just 
[34] 



JLotaltr to €i^tm 



beginning our Christian life, and are discour- 
aged already because we have failed to be 
what we meant to be, and to live as beauti- 
fully as we were sure we would live. Christ is 
patient with us when he knows that we are 
true in our heart, that we really want to be 
faithful. Charles Kingsley says : " Oh, at 
least be able to say in that day, ' Lord, I am 
no hero. I have been careless, cowardly, some- 
times all but mutinous. Punishment I have 
deserved — I deny it not. But a traitor I have 
never been ; a deserter I have never been. I 
have tried to fight on thy side in the battle 
against evil. I have tried to do the duty which 
lay nearest me, and to leave whatever thou 
didst commit to my charge a little better 
than I found it. I have not been good, but I 
have at least tried to be good.' " 
Christ never forgets how frail we are. But he 
does not want us ever to give up. Though 
we stumble when we are learning to walk, he 
wants us to get up and try again. Though 
we are defeated in our battle to-morrow, he 
wants us to rise at once and keep on fighting. 
[35] 



€]^e mntv life 



A true soldier may be wounded, may be 
beaten in many battles, but he never is a de- 
serter, never is a traitor. He is always loyal. 
It is only when we desert Christ, turn away 
from him, become false to him, that we really 
fail. You never can fail if you are true, if 
you are faithful. 

But w^e should always keep the standard of 
loyalty up to the highest point. The command 
is : " Be ye perfect, even as your Father 
which is in heaven is perfect." That standard 
must never be lowered. Christ's own thought 
of loyalty is simple faithfulness. " Be thou 
faithful." Faithful seems a gracious word. It 
requires nothing impossible. It demands noth- 
ing unreasonable. It asks only for a just re- 
turn. It does not exact ten talents when only 
two have been given. It is a word of love. 
Christ is a gentle taskmaster. Yet the word 
sets a high requirement — one, too, which can- 
not be lowered. It must have the best that we 
can do. When much has been given, a little 
will not be a satisfactory return. 
There must be loyalty also in character. St. 
[36] 



to^altv to €i)vi^t 



Paul suggests a cluster of the fruits of the 
Spirit which do not take an active form — 
"Love, joy, peace, longsuffering, kindness, 
goodness, faithfulness, meekness, self-con- 
trol." Most of these are quiet virtues. They 
are qualities of character. One might possess 
many of them and not be able to say he was 
an active Christian. Peace is not active. Joy, 
long-suffering, goodness are not active. Yet 
these graces are essential to a complete 
Christian life. We must think of the passive 
and quiet virtues as well as the active when 
we are trying to discover the full meaning 
of loyalty to Christ. 

Here is a man, for example, who bears the 
name of Christian. But he is not loving — he 
is hard to live with, suspicious, jealous, re- 
sentful. He has not joy, is morose, gloomy, 
a sad man. He has not peace — he is fretful, 
anxious, restless, full of fear and foreboding. 
He has not meekness — he is impatient, iras- 
cible, unmerciful. Lacking the qualities of 
love, joy, peace, meekness, can you call such 
a man a loyal follower of Christ? He may be 
[37] 



W^t wmt life 



a strenuous Christian so far as activities are 
concerned, a prominent church-member, a 
zealous church officer, foremost in the organi- 
zations of the church. Yet he is not a man 
you would call a beautiful Christian. Loyalty 
must be Christlike in character, in disposi- 
tion, in spirit, in the shining of the face, in 
the lovingness of the heart. 
But loyalty to Christ must also be active. A 
true patriot is a quiet and peaceable citizen 
in times of peace. But when the country is 
imperilled he is ready for service. He takes 
the soldier's place. The Christian belongs to 
the army of Christ and must follow his King 
to battle. He who fails to do his part in the 
conquest of the world cannot call himself 
fully loyal to Christ. He may not be an\ 
enemy of Christ, but he is a shirker, or he is 
lacking in courage. Loyalty to Christ means 
activity in the service of Christ. Find your 
work — what you can do to make the world 
better, happier, truer, and do it with all your, 
might. 

A good woman deplored her lack of useful- 
[38] 



lotaltt to €W^t 



ness. Yet many knew that her daily life was a 
constant benediction. She sweetened a home, 
blessed a houseful of children and young 
people and manifested the love of Christ 
among her neighbors. Was not that being an 
active Christian.^ There is an activity of be- 
ing as well as of doing. One wrote thus to a 
friend : 

" / vnsh that I might tell you what you are 
To me — you seem so fine and strong and true, 
So bold and yet so gentle, so apart 
From petty strivings that confuse men's minds, 
I wish that I might make you understand 
How your clean, brave young life has made me 
brave J^ 

Was not that an active Christian life.^ Yet 
the one to whom these words were spoken had 
the feeling that he was not doing anything 
worth while for Christ. Another wrote to one 
who thought he was not living as well as he 
should for his Master: 

" / never crossed your threshold with a grief 
But that I went without it; never came 
[39] 



m^t Wititt life 



Heart-hungry bid you fed me^ eased the 
blame, 
And gave the sorrow solace and relief, 

" / never left you but I took away 

The love that drew me to your side again 
Through that wide door that never coidd 
remain 
Quite closed between us for one little day.'^ 

Loyalty to Christ is shown in using our life 
in whatever way we may be able and may 
have opportunity to use it. You cannot be 
loyal to Christ and not be good. You cannot 
be loyal to Christ and not be always abound- 
ing in his work. 

Loyalty to Christ also demands of us the ut- 
termost of sincerity and truth in all our liv- 
ing. God desires truth in the inward parts. 
Yet are there not men who claim to be Chris- 
tians and are living a lie ? There are lives that 
are honeycombed by all manner of unfaith- 
fulnesses, dishonesties, injustices and injuries 
to others and by many secret sins. What does 
the lesson of loyalty to Christ have to teach 
[40] 



JLoraltr to Ci^rijst 



us about these things ? Are covered sins safely 
hidden? Are they out of sight forever? Oh, 
no ; be sure your sin will find you out. The 
word is not, " Be sure your sin will be found 
out." It may not be found out in this world, 
but it will " find you out." It will plague 
you, spoil your happiness, make your life 
wretched. What shall we do about these 
wrong things we have done ? A life of loyalty 
to Christ means a life that is white, clean, 
through and through. None can build a beau- 
tiful, shining character on covered sins. Joy 
is part of a complete Christian life, and no 
one can be joyous with sins concealed in his 
heart. 

St. Paul has a word about bringing every 
thought into captivity to the obedience of 
Christ. We should test every feeling, every 
imagination, every disposition, all conduct, 
by this test — loyalty to Christ. Some one 
does you a wrong, and you feel like getting 
angry. Be loyal to Christ. Keep your whole 
life, every day, every hour under the sway of 
his word. 

[41] 



Ci^e mhtt JLife 



Loyalty to Christ! There really is nothing 
else in religion. It is all in these three words. 
I will be faithful to Christ. I will be true to 
Christ. I will please Christ. I will be obedient 
to Christ. I will do his will. I will submit to 
his discipline. I will bear the cross he lays 
upon me. 

" Strong and tender and true, 

Crucified once for me ! 
Never will he change j I know, 

Whatever I may he 1 
But all he says I must do. 

Even from sin to keep free. 
We shall finish our course 
And reach home at last — 

His child and he.^' 



[42] 



(0oD in £Dur Common titt 



[43] 



^^Why seek ye for Jehovah 

^Mid SinaVs awful smoke ? 
The burning hush now shelters 

A sparrow's humble folk; 
The curve of God's sweet heaven 

Is the curve of the leaf of oak; 
The Voice that stilled the tempest 

To the little children spoke, — 
The bread of life eternal 

Is the bread He blessed and broke," 



[44] 



CHAPTER FOUR 



(Boh in €>ut Common titt 




E sometimes forget that 
God has anything to do 
with the small events of 
our every-day hves. Men 
seem to be living a life of 
their own, without refer- 
ence to God, without being influenced by him, 
without receiving help from him. They are 
not conscious of God. They go on working 
out their own schemes, following their own 
judgment, deciding questions for themselves, 
and seem rarely to become aware that there 
is any divine interference in their lives. 
Yet nothing is truer than that God is always 
moving in our lives, in every life, in the small- 
est affairs of each life. He may not speak to 
us, telling us what to do. He may not seem to 
break into our plans, setting them aside when 
they are not wise or good. Yet he guides us 
in making our choices and decisions, and then 
[45] 



Ci^e WiUt life 



cooperates with us in carrying them out, in- 
fluencing us ofttimes when we know it not. 
He does not interfere with our freedom — he 
has made us sovereigns, and we do always 
as seemeth good unto ourselves. God never 
forces us to do anything. Yet he is ever modi- 
fying our choices and using them to fulfil his 
own purposes. We decide to take a journey, 
going by a certain route ; then God leads us 
so that our route is changed and we are led 
some other way. Perhaps in our journey we 
come upon one who needs us, and we do him 
some kindness, and all life for us or for him 
is different ever afterward. 
All life is full of God. The teachings of 
Christ make this very clear. He tells us that 
our heavenly Father feeds the birds. Two 
sparrows, he says, are sold for a penny, they 
are of so little worth, yet God does not forget 
even one of them. " Ye are of more value than 
many sparrows,'^ and therefore God's care 
for you is many times more constant and 
more interested and tender. " The very hairs 
of your head are all numbered." This does 
[46] 



(0oD in 0nv Common life 

not need to mean that God actually counts 
our hairs and knows if one falls from our 
head and is lost. It means that he is interested 
in all the most minute events and circum- 
stances of our lives. Nothing that concerns 
us is too small to be considered by him. He 
is near us in everything, helping, using, 
directing. 

There is a beautiful Old Testament story 
which gives us a glimpse of the reality of the 
unseen world that always surrounds us. The 
servant of Elisha rose early, and, looking out 
at the window, saw an armed host surround- 
ing the city. He was greatly alarmed, and 
cried, " Alas, my master! how shall we do.^ " 
The prophet's answer was, ^^ Fear not; for 
they that are with us are more than they 
that are with them." Then Elisha prayed 
that the young man's eyes might be opened, 
and he had a vision of a world he had not seen 
before. " Behold, the mountain was full of 
horses and chariots of fire round about 
Elisha." This was not a mere dream, nor a 
picture shown to this young man to quiet 
[47] 



Ci^e muv life 



his dread. It was a glimpse of a reality which 
always exists. If we could see the things of 
the invisible world, we should discover that 
every life is surrounded by divine protection 
as actual and invincible as that which was 
about the prophet that morning. If we could 
see things as they are we should find that 
every life is divinely guarded, and every step 
divinely ordered. This is what we call provi- 
dence. About every godly life angels encamp. 
In God we live and move and have our 
being. 

" God is on the field when he 
Is most invisible J ^ 

Not only Is God with us in intimate com- 
panionship, but he works with us. We think we 
have done something good or beautiful, when 
really God has done it through us or working 
with us. ^ man was driving a pair of fine 
horses one day in the country. His little son 
sat beside him and held the lines in his hands. 
The boy was very proud at his achievement 
in driving. He had not noticed, however, that 
[48] 



dDioti in flDur Common tilt 

back of his hands his father's were also on 
the Hnes. In turning a curve in the road the 
httle fellow felt one of the lines firmly drawn 
through his hand. He now saw how it was. 
Looking into his father's face, he said, " I 
thought I was driving, father, but I am not 
— am I ? " We think we are driving, that we 
are doing certain things, when we are not. 
God's hands are back of ours. 
We have an illustration of this divine activity 
in the affairs of the world, in the Acts, in the 
story of Philip's being sent to the desert. He 
was preaching in the city of Samaria with 
great power and success. Then suddenly he 
was directed by the Spirit to leave this work 
and go out alone on a desert road. He did not 
know where he was going, or why. Nobody 
lived in the desert. What could the Master 
want him to do out there .^ Yet he asked no 
questions. The narrative describes a beauti- 
ful heroism of faith in four words — " He 
arose and went." For a time he journeyed 
on obediently, without learning what the 
Lord wanted wiih him in that lonely place. 
[49] 



Ci^e mrytt tiit 



At length he saw a chariot driving across 
the desert. Impelled by an irresistible impulse 
he ran toward the chariot. As he drew near, 
he saw a man sitting in it, reading a book. 
The man in the chariot wore the dress of a 
person of high rank. The man on foot felt 
an impulse to speak to the nobleman riding. 
So he opened conversation and asked him if 
he understood whait he was reading. Perhaps 
he saw a troubled or perplexed look on the 
face of the traveller. It came out presently 
that the man in the chariot was greatly in 
need of a spiritual guide. It was a striking 
coincidence that here was the very man the 
nobleman needed to teach him the meaning 
of the Scripture that he could not understand. 
Philip sat beside him and explained to him 
the words he was reading, showing him a re- 
vealing of Christ in them. 
The meeting of the two men out there in the 
desert was not accidental. It had all been 
divinely arranged for. We plainly see the 
providence in this particular instance. Usu- 
ally we do not see God so plainly in life's ex- 
[50] 



(Boti in €>ttt Common Life 

periences, but he is always in each one as 
really as he was in this case. 
We are continually in the midst of divine 
providences. We go out on some simple jour- 
ney, never thinking that it may have a mean- 
ing besides and beyond our own little business 
or pleasure, that God has a definite purpose 
in it. Presently we meet some one, perhaps 
a stranger, and discover that the meeting 
has not been an accidental one. We have 
been sent to this person on a sacred errand. 
He needs us — there is something God wants 
us to do for him. There are no accidental 
meetings of people. God arranges that cer- 
tain persons shall cross our path at a definite 
moment. They are discouraged^ and we can 
put a little cheer into their hearts. They are 
carrying a heavy burden — ^we cannot lift 
away the burden, for it is God's gift, and it 
would rob them of blessing and good to re- 
lieve them of it, but we may put new strength 
into their hearts, and thus make them more 
able to go on with their loads. 
We are told just before the narrative of the 
[51] 



Cl^e Wihtv tilt 



woman at the well, that Jesus " must needs 
pass through Samaria." Wearied with his 
journey, he sat down to rest by the well. This 
was the human part. It seemed accidental. 
Then a woman came to the well to draw 
water. This was God sending one who sorely 
needed help to him who was not too weary to 
show a kindness which meant everlasting life 
to a sinful soul. In an old English poem there 
is this line: 

^'It chanced — Eternal God that chance did 
guide,'' 

This is the meaning of every happening that 
comes into our lives. There is no chance. In 
the parable of the good Samaritan we are 
told of a man going down from Jerusalem to 
Jericho, who was set upon by robbers that 
stripped him, beat him, and left him by the 
roadside half dead. The record says, " By 
chance a certain priest was going down that 
way." " By chance," that is, by coincidence, 
at the same time, just when he was needed. 
" It chanced — Eternal God that chance did 
[52] 



(15oD in €)ut Common life 

guide." God sent the priest. It was all ar- 
ranged and timed that he should be at the 
place just when the man had been left by the 
roadside bleeding, almost dead. 
The timely coming that way of the priest at 
the very moment of need, we call, more de- 
voutly, a providence. Men tell you how, often, 
just in the nick of time, something happened 
which saved them from impending danger of 
which they did not know. They say it was 
providential. This is what the word chance 
means in this parable. " Providentially a cer- 
tain priest was going down that way just 
then." We are continually sent, providen- 
tially, that we may be at the place of need 
at the moment of need. It is not an ac- 
cident that you are thrown some day with a 
man who is in trouble, needing help. " It 
chanced — Eternal God that chance did 
guide." Did you give the help God had 
planned and arranged to have you there at 
that moment to give.^^ 

It was not chance that brought Jesus to the 

well of Jacob that day, just before the woman 

[53] 



Ci^e Wihtv Utt 



came to draw water. God guided that chance. 
It was providential, we would say. That is 
the divine side of the meaning of the words, 
" He must needs pass through Samaria.'' 
And Jesus did not fail God — he did not pass 
by on the other side. He was weary, so weary 
that he could not go any farther, but sat 
down to rest while his disciples went on to 
the town to buy some food. He might have 
said that he was too tired to talk to this 
woman when she came down to get water. 
That is what some people say, some Christian 
people, too, when, providentially, a human 
need, a sorrow, a heart-hunger, meets them. 
" I am too tired. I am worn out. I do not feel 
well enough to do anything," or, " I have put 
on my house-coat and my slippers, and I can- 
not go out again to-night." But we never 
should fail God when by chance, providen- 
tially, he brings some piece of love's duty to 
our hand. No matter how weary we are, we 
should arise and do the work, give the relief, 
comfort the sorrowful, care for the orphan, 
visit the sick man, be a friend to the lonely 
[54] 



(150D (n €)ur Common life 

one, care for the soul of the man for whom 
nobody else is caring. 

Life is full of God. He is always coming to 
us. On our lightest days he faces us continu- 
ally with some new task for our hands. We 
meet people as strangers, perhaps riding with 
them for a few miles on a railway train, or 
down town on the trolley car, and the oppor- 
tunity is given to say a word whose influence 
may change a life, showing the face of Christ 
to one who knew him not, revealing a thought 
of comfort which makes a sorrowing heart 
stronger to go on with its load of grief. Even 
chance meetings are providential opportuni- 
ties, arranged by God himself, for helping 
his children. 

We do not begin to know how holy all our life 
is, how full of God. Perhaps the person you 
are sitting with and talking to needs the 
words you have ready on your lips to speak. 
They are words of life, eternal life, which you 
do not get time to speak, because there are so 
many idle words that insist on being spoken. 
Coventry Patmore, in one of his poems, dwells 
[55] 



m^t WiUv life 



on the criticalness of the most common meet- 
ings we have with others : 

^^ // thou dost bid thy friend farewell, 
But for one night though that fareivell may be. 
Press thou his hand in thine, ^^ 

You may never see your friend again, and 
therefore your parting, though but until to- 
morrow, as you suppose, should be kindly and 
affectionate, fit for a last parting. You do 
not know that it may not be the last. Then 
the poet gives this lesson about our talks and 
conversations with others : 

" Yea, find thou always time to say some earnest 
word 

Between the idle talk, 
Lest with thee, henceforth, night and day, 
Regret should walk J ^ 

God is in every experience of life. If sickness 
comes, you " must needs " pass through it. 
It is not accidental. It is not to be an empty 
experience. The time in the sick-room is not 
meant to be lost time. There will be duties, 
[56] 



(BoD in €>ut Common £ife 

there will be lessons to learn, there will be 
blessings to receive. If sorrow comes, you 
" must needs " pass through it. It will not 
be an easy way, but the " must needs " will 
make it sacred, God's way, and if you pass 
through it reverently, trustingly, with ac- 
quiescence, the way will be bright with God's 
presence. If it should be the way of death, 
you must needs walk in it, and the must needs 
will make it the divinely chosen way for you, 
a way shining with love and joy. 



[57] 



Ci^e Ci^tngjs tl^at ate aijote 



[59] 



^^ Touch the rock-door of my heart, 
Christ, dead for my sin ! 
Say, * Come — let us rise, and depart 
From the shadows within — 

*^^Out where the light of the stars 
Shines clear overhead; 
Where the soul is free from its bars, 
And Sin lies dead.' 

^^ And dead the old Shadow lies, 
That has chilled my breast; 
Say to the sleepers ^ Arise /^ 
Lead them to rest I ^^ 

— Laughlan MacLean Watt. 



[60] 



CHAPTER FIVE 



Cl^e Cl^mgjS ti^at are abotie 




T. PAUL reminds us that 
tho&e who believe on Christ 
should live a risen life. He 
says, " Seek the things 
that are above, where 
Christ is." We live on the 
earth at present. We walk on earth's streets. 
We live in material houses, built of stones, 
bricks, or wood. We eat earth's fruits, gather- 
ing our food from earth's fields, orchards and 
gardens. We wear clothes woven of earthly 
fabrics. We adorn our homes with works of 
art that man's hands make. We engage in the 
business of earth. We find our happiness in 
the things of this life. 

But there will be a life after this. We call it 
heaven. We cannot see it. There is never a 
rift in the sky through which we can get 
even a glimpse of it. We have in the Scrip- 
tures hints of its beauty, its happiness, its 
[61] 



m^t Winn life 



blessedness. We know it is a world without 
sorrow, without sin, without death. 
St. Paul's teaching is that the Christian, 
while living on the earth, ought to begin to 
live this heavenly life. One day before Easter 
a friend sent me a splendid butterfly, artisti- 
cally mounted, known as the Luna Moth. 
This little creature is said to be the most 
beautiful of North American insects. Its color 
is light green with variegated spots. In its 
caterpillar state it was the Luna Silkworm 
— only a worm. It died and entered its other 
or higher state, as we would say, and then 
the worm became a splendid butterfly. 
This illustrates the two stages of human life. 
Here we are in our earthly state. After this 
will come the heavenly condition. " The things 
that are above " belong to this higher, spirit- 
ual life. But the Christian is exhorted to seek 
these higher things while living in this lower 
world. We belong to heaven, although we are 
not yet living in heaven. We have it in one of 
the petitions of the Lord's Prayer — " Thy 
will be done on earth as it is in heaven." The 
[62] 



Ci^e Ci^tngjs ti^at are atiote 

prayer Is that we may do God's will not 
merely when we get to heaven, but now, while 
we are on the earth, as the holy ones who 
are In heaven do it. The law of the heavenly 
life is to be the law of God's children in this 
world. We are to seek the things that are 
above where Christ Is. 

St. Paul presents the same truth In another 
form when he says, " Our citizenship Is in 
heaven." We are in this world, but we do not 
belong here. We are only strangers, pilgrims. 
We travel abroad. We visit cities, looking 
upon beautiful things, mingling with the 
people of other lands, charmed by what we 
see, but we are only tourists. Something tugs 
at our hearts continually — it is home. So 
while we still live in this world we are citizens 
of heaven. Christ Is our King. We owe him 
our allegiance, our obedience. We are to seek 
the things that are above, where Christ Is. 
We can conceive only dimly of the things 
that are above. Nothing that Is unloving Is 
found there. God is love, and only love can 
live where God Is. The thirteenth chapter of 
[63] 



Cl^e ^(Det; life 



First Corinthians is a little earthly vision of 
some things that are above. It tells how the 
inhabitants live together. " Love suffereth 
long, and is kind; love envieth not; love 
vaunteth not itself, is not puffed up, doth 
not behave itself unseemly, seeketh not its 
own, is not provoked, taketh not account of 
evil; rejoiceth not in unrighteousness, but 
rejoiceth with the truth; beareth all things, 
believeth all things, hopeth all things, en- 
dureth all things." Love is one of the things 
that are above where Christ is, which we are 
also to have here. 

Truth is another. The Scriptures say, " He 
that uttereth lies shall perish." This means 
all kinds of lies ; lies people tell with their 
lips, lies they tell in the work they do. One of 
the most damaging things that can be said 
of a man is that he is not truthful. He is a 
liar. Nobody believes him. Nobody has any 
confidence in him. In the Book of Revelation 
we read of certain persons who are shut out 
of heaven, and among these are all liars. Even 
in this world a liar is shut out of every place 
[64] 



in which honorable men gather. Falsehood is 
always dishonoring. On the other hand, truth 
makes a man honored. There are certain 
names which shine bright and fair after cen- 
turies, because thej are synonyms of truth 
and honesty. The finest violins in the world 
are those which were made by Antonio Stra- 
divari, who lived more than two hundred and 
fifty years ago. They were exquisitely beauti- 
ful. Stradivari was scrupulously careful in 
every smallest part of his workmanship, no 
more with what all eyes would see than with 
what no one could see. He said he must al- 
ways do his best — that if his hands slacked 
in any part of his work he would rob God 
and leave a blank, where there should be good 
violins. His aim was that so long as 

" Any master holds ^ 
'Twixt chin and hand, a violin of hiSj 
He will he very glad that Stradavari lived. 
Made violins, and made them of the best.'^ 

Shakespeare says, " The truest treasure mor- 
tal times afford, is spotless reputation." 
[65] 



Ci^e WiUv life 



Reputation is won by what we do and what 
we are in hfe. Spotless reputation must be, 
can be only, the harvest of honor and truth 
in living. President Eliot named certain 
things which an honorable man cannot do, 
never does. " He never wrongs or degrades 
a woman. He never wrongs or cheats a per- 
son weaker or poorer than himself. He never 
betrays a trust. He is honest, sincere, candid, 
generous — not generous with money only, but 
generous also in his judgments of men and 
women." Reputation is made by the words 
and deeds of every passing day. Truth is 
among the things that are above, w^here 
Christ is, which we, as Christians, should 
always seek in our present life. 
In saying that we should do the things of the 
heavenly life in this earthly life, we are not 
to infer that the common work of this world 
is unworthy. We use the words secular and 
spiritual sometimes in a way that disparages 
what we call secular. We talk about the secu- 
lar affairs of a good man, or of a church, as 
if they were not sacred, at least as if they 
[66] 



Ci^e Ci^tngjs ti^at are abotie 

were of a lower order than certain other kinds 
of work which we call spiritual. We need to 
guard ourselves carefully in making such 
distinctions, lest we do dishonor to men or 
women who do as holy and as worshipful 
service in their common, daily taskwork, as 
they could do if their lives were devoted to 
spiritual service. 

The New Testament says not a word against 
what we call secular business. Jesus did not 
ask that his disciples should be taken out 
of the world — he asked rather that they 
should stay in the world, and that they 
should be kept from the world's evil. It is as 
much a duty to earn one's daily bread as it 
is to pray and to go to the Lord's Table. 
Work is a means of grace — it is idleness that 
draws a curse to itself. The holiest duties of 
earth are ofttimes found in places which 
seem unheavenly. It is the heart that makes 
any service sacred or reverent. One may be 
a bootblack, and please Christ better, get 
greater blessing, be a better citizen of heaven, 
than another who is a minister of the gospel, 
[67] 



Cl^e Wi^tv life 



busy with insistent duties. We must never 
forget that the Son of God came to earth and 
spent thirty years in what we would thought- 
lessly call secular work. While he wrought at 
his carpenter's bench, his heart was in the 
holy of holies. He was in communion with 
the Father all the while he was toiling wdth 
the axe, hammer and saw. Let no one call the 
carpenter work of Jesus unholy — it was as 
pleasing to his Father as what he did later, 
when he went about healing, teaching and 
blessing the sorrowing. 

When we seek to do the things that are 
above, where Christ is, most of us find the 
bulk of our occupation in common tasks and 
duties. To-morrow we shall have to rise early 
and go to our business, and there will be no 
dishonor, no irreverence in our most diligent 
devotion to these common tasks and occupa- 
tions. We may please our Master just as well 
in these things that are given to us to do, as 
we please him on Sunday in specific acts of 
worship. 

A mother among the very poor died and left 
[68] 



C]^e Ci^ingji ti^at are abotie 

a little daughter with a heritage of love and 
sacrifice. She bade her to be kind to her 
father, who was a drunkard. She would often 
be abused, beaten by him, when he came home 
at night, but she was always to be patient 
and gentle with him. " Remember it's all the 
drink." The other younger children were also 
confided to her keeping and she was to do all 
she could for their comfort. She was won- 
drously loving and kind, living the lesson of 
love so beautifully that heaven must have 
looked down with approval upon her sweet 
life. But she never could go to church or to 
Sunday school. There were some godly people 
who tried to get her to the mission, and they 
told her that Christ would not be pleased 
with her unless she would attend the services. 
Mary was frightened and feared that she 
should not be saved, for the care of the chil- 
dren and of her drunken father gave her no 
time for anything else. 

When the heated season came Mary took the 

fever. Her body had been weakened by the 

care and toil, and she was unable to endure. 

[69] 



Ci^e wmv titt 



She grew worse and worse, and the doctor 
said she could not live. One day Mary sent 
for the playmate who lived across the street 
and said, " The charity doctor has been here, 
Katie. He says I'll never be any better. If it 
wasn't for one thing I'm sure I'd just.be 
glad. You know how it's been here, Katie — 
I've had so much to do I couldn't mind the 
children and go to the preaching, too. And 
I've been so tired at night I couldn't think to 
pray. And now, when I see the dear Lord 
Jesus, what can I say?" Then Katie, the 
little comforter, her help to the problem 
brought; into the heart made wise by love, s 
the Spirit sent this thought : " I wouldn't say 
a word, dear, for well he understands. I would 
say never a word at all. But, Mary, just show 
him your hands." That was enough. The 
hands that had wrought so faithfully would 
tell the whole story. 

Going to church is a duty. Christ loves to 
meet us there. It is his appointment with us. 
Unless some other duty hinders us we should 
never be absent. But in little Mary's case 
[70] 



it was impossible to do love's duty well in her 
place and also attend the services of the 
church. " Seek the things that are above, 
where Christ is," meant for her doing the 
things of love in her own home. If you are 
needed to help others, to care for the sick, 
as doctors and nurses must do, to serve those 
who are suffering, or in trouble, do not be 
afraid if you cannot go to the meetings, 
" Just show him your hands." The hands 
that serve and bless are hands that are like 
Christ's hands, and the things of love are 
things that are above. 

It may seem an impossible life to which this 
message calls us, but no divine command ever 
calls one to an impossibility. To enter the 
kingdom of heaven is to begin to do here the 
things of heaven. At first it will not be easy, 
but in doing the will of God we learn to do 
it better. When the master found his pupil 
sleeping for very weariness beside his un- 
finished picture, discouraged and sick at 
heart because he had not been able to do it 
as he wanted to do it, he took the brush and 
[71] 



Ci^e WUitv life 



finished it with his own hand. So will our 
Master do for us when we have done our very 
best and still have fallen short — he will add 
his own touch to It, and our poor efforts will 
appear in perfect beauty. Seek the things 
that are above where Christ is, and your life 
wall grow here into the beginnings of heaveji- 
llness as the days pass, and at last when you 
reach glory you will find that you have the 
lesson full learned. 



[72] 



Ci^e annet and ti^e €>utet Life 



[73] 



'^OldP Well, the heavens are old; this earth is, too; 
Old wine is best, maturest fruit most sweet; 
Much have we lost, more gained, although His true 
We tread lifers way with most uncertain feet, 
WeWe growing old ! 

i^We move along, and scatter as we pace 
Soft graces, tender hopes on every hand; 
At last with gray-streaked hair and hollow face, 
We step across the boundary of the land 
Where none are old,^^ 



[74] 



CHAPTER SIX 

Ci^e 9Inner anu tl^e C>uter life 




E are not merely bodies. 
There is a life within our 
body which goes on when 
the body has ceased to 
exist. The inner man does 
not wear out as the body 
wastes. It does not grow old, nor become 
feeble with the years. The inner life is not 
dependent on the outer. One may be physi- 
cally broken and decrepit, and yet spiritually 
strong. St. Paul states this truth when he 
says, " Though our outward man is decaying, 
yet our inward man is renewed day by day." 
The outer may be destroyed and the man still 
live on. "I will kill you," said the emperor in 
his rage to an undismayed follower of Christ, 
standing before him. " That you cannot do," 
said the Christian, " for my life is hid with 
Christ in God." 

The lesson of the undecaying life has a spe- 
[75] 



W^t Wititv life 



cial application to those who suffer from sick- 
ness or from any bodily affliction. It will help 
us to endure physical sufferings quietly and 
unmurmuringly, if we will remember that it 
is only the outward man that can be touched 
and affected by these experiences, and that 
the inward man may not only be kept un- 
harmed but may be growing all the while in 
beauty and strength, being spiritually re- 
newed through pain and suffering. 
A poor shoemaker in his dreary little shop in 
a great city, one day found by accident that 
there was one little place in his dark room 
from which he could get a view, through a 
window, of green fields, blue skies and far- 
away hills. He wisely set his bench at that 
point, so that at any moment he could lift his 
eyes from his dull work and have a glimpse of 
the great, beautiful world outside. From the 
darkest sick-room and from the midst of the 
keenest sufferings there is always a point 
from which we can see the face of Christ and 
have a glimpse of the glory of heaven. If only 
we will find this place and get this vision, it 
[76] 



Ci^e 9Innet; anti tl^e €)utet Life 

will make it easy to endure even the greatest 
suffering. 

Sickness is discouraging and is hard to bear. 
But we should remember that the doing of 
the will of God is always the noblest, holiest 
thing we can do any hour, however hard it 
may be for us. If we are called to suffer, let 
us suffer patiently and sweetly. Under all our 
sharp trials let us keep in our hearts the 
peace of God. Under the snows of suffering, 
let us cherish the fairest, gentlest growths 
of spiritual life. The outward man may in- 
deed decay, but the inward man will be re- 
newed day by day. 

The teaching has an application also to those 
who are growing old. St. Paul was an old man 
when he wrote these triumphant words. As 
a missionary he had travelled over many lands 
to carry the gospel to lost men. He had been 
exposed to storms, fevers and persecutions. 
He had suffered all manner of hardships and 
was a broken man. The old house he had lived 
in so long was battered and shattered. But 
while his body was thus worn out — the out- 
[77] 



m)t wmv life 



ward man decaying — his inward man was 
strong, undecaying, triumphant. 
The problem of Christian old age is to keep 
the heart young and full of hope and of all 
youth's gladness, however feeble and broken 
the body may become. We need to be most 
watchful, however, lest we allow our life to 
lose its zest and deteriorate in its quality 
when old age begins to come on. The best, 
then, seems behind us and there is less to 
draw us on. Hopes of achievement appear to 
be ended for us — our work is almost done, 
we think. Sometimes people, as they grow 
old, become less sweet and less beautiful in 
spirit. Troubles, disasters and misfortunes 
have made the days hard and painful for 
them. Perhaps health is broken and suffering 
is added to the other elements that make the 
old age unhappy. 

Renan, in one of his books, recalls an old 
French legend of a buried city on the coast of 
Brittany. With its homes, public buildings, 
churches, and thronged streets, it sank in- 
stantly into the sea. The legend says that the 
[78] 



Ci^e %nntt and t\)t flDuter Life 

city's life goes on as before, down beneath 
the waves. The fishermen, when in calm 
weather they row over the place, think they 
sometimes can see the gleaming tips of the 
church spires deep in the water, and fancy 
they can hear the chiming of the bells in the 
old belfries, and even the murmur of the 
city's noises. 

There are men who in their old age seem to 
have an experience like this. Their life of 
youthful hopes, dreams, successes, loves and 
joys, has been sunk out of sight, submerged 
in misfortunes and adversities, and has van- 
ished altogether. Nothing remains of it all 
but a memory. In their discouragement they 
often think sadly of their lost past and seem 
to hear the echoes of the old songs of hope 
and gladness, and to catch visions of the old 
beauty and splendor. But that is all. Nothing 
real is left. Their spirits have grown hope- 
less and bitter. 

But this is not worthy living for those who 

are immortal, who were born to be children 

of God. The hard things are not meant to 

[79] 



m^t ^(Der life 



mar our life — they are meant to make us all 
the braver, the worthier, the nobler. 

" Confide ye aye in Providence, 

For Providence is kind. 
And bear ye a^ lifers changes 

Wi' a calm and tranquil mind. 
Tho^ pressed and hemmed on every side, 

Hae faith and ye^ll win through, 
For ilka blae o' grass keps 

Its ain drap o' dew.'' 

It is not meant that the infirmities of old 
age shall break through into our inner life; 
that should grow all the more beautiful the 
more the outer life is broken. The shattering 
of the old mortal tent should reveal more and 
more of the glory of the divine life that dwells 
within. 

Do you ever think, you who are growing old, 
that old age ought really to be the very best 
of life? We are too apt to settle down to the 
feeling that in our infirmities we cannot any 
longer live beautifully, worthily, usefully or 
actively. But this is not the true way to think 
[80] 



Ci^e 9Innet; anD ti^t f^uttt life 

of old age. We should reach our best then 
in every way. That is what Browning de- 
clares in " Rabbi Ben Ezra " : 

" Grow old along with me ! 
The best is yet to be. 
The last of life, for which the first was made: 
Our times are in His hands 
Who saith, ^ A whole I planned: 
Youth shows but half; trust God; see all nor be 
afraid,^ '' 

Is it not true that old age should be the best, 
the very best, of all life.? It should be the 
most beautiful, with the flaws mended, the 
faults cured, the mistakes corrected, the les- 
sons all well learned. Youth is full of im- 
maturity, mid-life is full of toil and care, 
strife and ambition. Old age should be as 
the autumn, with its golden fruit. We ought 
to be better Christians than ever we have 
been before, more submissive to God's will, 
more content, more patient and gentle, kind- 
lier and more loving, when we grow old. We 
are drawing nearer to heaven every day, and 
[81] 



Cl^e mux life 



our visions of the Father's house should be 
clearer and brighter. Old age should always 
be the best of life in its harvest, not marked 
by emptiness and decay, but by richer fruit- 
fulness and more gracious beauty. It may be 
lonely, with so many gone of those who used 
to cluster about the life, but the loneliness 
will not be for long, for it is drawing nearer 
continually to all the great company of wait- 
ing ones in heaven. 

Old age may be feeble, but the marks of 
feebleness are really foretokens of glory. Dr. 
Guthrie, as his life grew feeble, spoke of his 
thin locks, his trembling steps, his dulness 
of hearing, his dimness of eye and the crow's- 
feet, as like the land birds lighting on the 
shrouds, telling the weary mariner that he 
was nearing the haven. The old people have 
no reason for sadness ; they are really in their 
best days. Let them be sure to live now at 
their best. St. Paul was growing old when he 
wrote of his enthusiastic vision of beauty yet 
to be attained, but we hear no note of age or 
weariness from him. He did not think of his 
[82] 



Ci^e fnner anti ti^e €>utet; Uft 

life as done. He showed no consciousness that 
he had passed the highest reach of Hving. 
He was still forgetting the past and reach- 
ing forth, because he knew that his best was 
yet before him. His outward man was feeble, 
his health shattered, his physical vigor de- 
caying, but the hfe of the man within was 
undecayed and undecaying. He was never be- 
fore so Christlike as he was now, never so 
full of hope, never so enthusiastic in his ser- 
vice of his Master. 

Those who are growing old should rise to 
holiest joy, to most triumphant faith, to 
sweetest love, to most rapturous praise, and 
should attain the ripest spiritual fruitfulness. 
They should do their best work for Christ in 
the days that remain for them. They should 
live their gentlest, sweetest, kindliest, most 
helpful life in* the time they have yet to stay 
in this world. They should make their years 
of old age years of quietness, of peace, a 
glad, holy eventide. In trust and peace they 
should nestle like a little child in the everlast- 
ing arms that are underneath them, and give 
[83] 



m)t Wihtv life 



(Mt to all who are about them the sweetest 
love, the holiest joy, the most blessed hope. 
But this can be the story of their experience 
only if their life be hid with Christ in God. 
Apart from Christ, no life can keep its zest 
or its radiance. 

" I heard the. sparrow's note from heaven, 
Singing at dawn on an alder bough; 
I brought him horne: in his nest at even 
He sings the song, but it cheers not now, 
For I did not bring home the river and the sky: 
He sang to my ear — they sang to my eye.^' 

Those who are younger may do much to add 
to the zest and gladness of old people. They 
are lonely. Nearly all of the friends who used 
to brighten their lives with their companion- 
ship are gone. Yet the hunger for love re- 
mains. Blessed are the old who are surrounded 
by happy young people who are loving and 
willing enough to show them attention, to be 
affectionate to them, to give time and thought 
to them. Old people never get beyond the 
need of gentle kindness, nor reach a time 
[84] 



Cl^e 91nnet: anD tl^e €>utet; life 

when they do not care any more for love's ex- 
pressions. 

" Put your arm around me — 
There — like that: 
I want a little petting 
At Lifers setting, 

" For it is harder to be brave 
When feeble age comes creeping, 
And finds me weeping, 
Dear ones gone. 

■'Ju^t a little petting 
At Lifers setting; 
For I am old, alone and tired, 
And my long lifers work is done," 

This lesson has its comforts also for the be- 
liever in death. Some good people dread 
death. It seems extinction, the end of all. Oh, 
no : it is the end of nothing but sin and mor- 
tality. Do you remember Thomas Hook's 
epitaph? " Here endeth the first lesson." The 
second lesson comes after. " Though our out- 
ward man is decaying, yet our inward man is 
[85] 



Ci^e Wititt life 



renewed." When the body dies, the spirit, the 
immortal part, escapes out of its dissolved 
dwelling-place to live forever with Christ. 
Dying hurts no believer. It is emancipation — 
" absent from the body, at home with the 
Lord." 

Fear nothing if your life is hid with Christ 
in God. The things that can decay only make 
the undecaying things more manifest. When 
the earth perishes heaven will be seen as our 
final, imperishable home. 

" Ye dainty mosses ^ lichens gray, 

Pressed each to each in tender fold, 
And peacefully thus, day by day, 
Returning to their mould; 

^^ If we, God's conscious creatures, knew 
But half your faith in our decay, 
We should not tremble as we do 
When summoned clay to clay, 

" Ye dead leaves, dropping soft and slow, 
Ye mosses green and lichens fair, 
Go to your graves, as I will go, 
For God is also there,' * 
[86] 



CJe ptint of ti^e 0ail^ 



[8?: 



^^Life is a burden; bear it; 
Life is a duty; dare it; 
Life is a thorn-crown; wear it. 
Though it break your heart in twain. 

Though the burden crush you down; 
Close your lips and hide your pain: 
First the cross, and then the crown.*' 

i^ Every rose of life, and every thorn, 

Is consecrated by remembrance sweet — 
Because once long ago Love did not scorn 
To tread the wilderness with bleeding feet J' 



[88] 



CHAPTER SEVEN 

Cl^e #rfnt of tl^e jl^ailjs 




HOMAS had missed seeing 
Jesus in the upper room 
when he showed his wound- 
ed hands to the disciples 
and he declared that un- 
less he saw the hands for 
himself and the print of the nails in them he 
would not believe. In a sense Thomas was 
right. If the print of the nails had not been 
in the hands of him who stood in the midst 
of the disciples that night, it would not have 
been the Christ. There is a strange legend 
which says that once there came to the cell of 
a saintly monk one who knocked and desired 
admittance. His manner was lordly. His dress 
was rich. His hands were jewelled. " Who art 
thou.^ " asked the saint. "I am Jesus," was 
the answer. There was something in the voice 
and manner of the visitor which made the 
godly one suspect that he was not the Holy 
[89] 



m^t wmt titt 



One he claimed to be. He looked at him closely 
for a moment, and then asked, " Where is 
the print of the nails ? " Instantly the 
stranger turned away. It was the Evil One, 
not the Master. Nothing is Christ or of 
Christ which does not bear the mark of the 
nails. 

Said another saint, " There are many hands 
offered to help you. How shall you know the 
right one.? " Then he answered, " Because in 
the centre of the palm there is the scar of a 
wound received long since, but now glorious 
with light, according to the saying, ' He had 
rays coming out of his hand.' " 
Every one who comes to offer help, friendship 
or guidance, must be subjected to this test. 
If there is no print of the nails in the hand 
that is offered, it is not a hand whose help 
you should accept. 

What does the print of the nails stand for.? 
We know what it meant in the hands of 
Christ. It told the disciples that night that 
this man they saw before them was their 
friend who had died on the cross. It was the 
[90] 



infallible mark of identification. It also 
proved to them that he was risen and alive 
again. They thought they had lost him, but 
now they had him again. It was the proof, 
too, that he was the Messiah, as they had 
believed. Their hopes had not perished. All 
this the print of the nails meant to the dis- 
ciples. 

As we look at his hands what do they tell us 
about Jesus.? He was dead. Yes, but why.? 
The wounds in his hands tell us that he died 
as our Redeemer. He was the Lamb of God 
that took away the sin of the world. We have 
it in the old prophet : " He was wounded for 
our transgressions, he was bruised for our 
iniquities." That is, the print of the nails 
tells us that Jesus Christ loved us and gave 
himself for us. It means, then, love and sacri- 
fice. But it is not only in the Christ dying 
that we find this mark, this print of nails — 
it was just as plain and clear in his whole life 
before he died as it was when he was on the 
cross. Wherever we see him this mark is on 
him. He did not love us any more the first 
[91] 



m^t WiUt life 



Good Friday, when he was dying for us in 
the darkness, than he did the day he took the 
httle children in his arms and blessed them, 
or the day he fed the hungry people in the 
desert. His whole life was one of love and 
sacrifice. He was always loving. He was al- 
ways forgetting himself. He was always 
serving. 

Christ wants to see the print of the nails also 
in us — in our hands, in our hearts, in our 
lives. This does not mean that we must be 
nailed on a cross as our Master was. There 
is no need for another sacrifice for sin. Nei- 
ther does it mean that we must wear actual 
nail wounds in our flesh. One of the old 
legends tells of a certain saint who gazed so 
continuously upon the crucifix, that in his 
hands came the actual print of the nails as 
if he had been crucified. But even if this had 
actually occurred, and if in our hands came 
also these physical marks of crucifixion, it 
would not meet our Lord's desire. What he 
wishes is the print of the nails, not physical 
marks in our bodies, but in our character, in 
[92] 



Cl^e pvint of tl^e ^atljs 

our disposition, in our conduct, in our serv- 
ing of others. 

What then does it mean for us to have in us 
the print of the nails? The cross meant love, 
love that stopped at no sacrifice. The deepest 
meaning of Christ's cross was vicarious suf- 
fering. He gave himself for us. Then we turn 
to St. John's Epistle and read this : " He 
laid down his life for us : and we ought to lay 
down our lives for the brethren." This may 
not be required literally, but it is required in 
life, in spirit, in act. How is it necessary for 
every Christian to lay down his life for 
others ? Some one writes : " The nails of the 
true cross to-day are precisely those acts and 
decisions of ours which transfix our common 
selfishness. Whenever we deny ourselves will- 
ingly for the love of others who do not love 
us, whenever we spend pains and patience to 
understand those who have no sympathy with 
us, whenever we give up ease, profit, or repu- 
tation for the unthankful and the evil, we are 
beginning to receive upon us these sacred 
marks of the Crucified.'^ 
[93] 



m^t Wintv JLffe 



You have your own work or your own 
pleasure planned, and some one needs you. 
It may not be one of your own family, or one 
whom you call friend, or one for whom you are 
proud to do a service. It may be one who has 
no claim of kinship or friendship on you, one 
you do not care for, one you even dislike. Yet 
one, some one, any one, needs you and you 
sweetly give up your planned work or pleas- 
ure and turn cheerfully, with love, to do the 
thing that is needed instead. That is a print 
of the nails. 

One way, for instance, in which the print of 
the nails is shown is in getting on happily 
and kindly with disagreeable persons. A plain 
woman gave this definition of Christian love 
— " Loving people you don't like." Another 
Christian woman tells of her own experience 
in trying to do this. She asks, " Did you ever 
have a person in your home who acted as a 
perpetual rasp on the feelings of your house- 
hold.? I had," she continued. " One day I had 
nearly lost my faith and was sinking in the 
black waters of despair. I called on Christ to 
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m^t pvint of tl^e 0ail^ 

help me, or I would perish. And what do you 
think he asked me to do ? To love this woman. 
This was the only ladder he offered me up 
out of the black depths. Then I grew uglier 
than ever, and almost hated my Saviour. The 
struggle went on until I could stand it no 
longer. In anguish I rushed to my closet and 
again besought Jesus to help me. It seemed 
then as though, in a most tender, loving voice, 
he asked, ' Can't you love her for my sake? ' 
I said, ' Yes, Lord, I will.' At once a peace 
filled my heart. My feelings toward her had 
changed entirely. I had yielded my will to 
Christ." 

We see plainly and deeply marked in this new 
love the print of the nails. It is easy — it 
leaves no wound prints — to love those we like, 
those to whom our hearts go out in affection- 
ate tenderness, those who are naturally dear 
to us. But that is not all that is required and 
does not test our lives. We are to love the 
disagreeable, those who rasp our feelings by 
their presence, their manner, their bearing. 
It is when we love such as these and get along 
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sweetly in their company, that our Master 
sees the print of the nails in us. 
Or take it in our service of others. Jesus 
humbled himself and took upon him the form 
of a servant. The highest exhibition of this 
was on the cross when he died serving us — 
serving those who hated him. But his whole 
life was serving. He altogether forgot him- 
self. Love led him on from self-sacrifice to 
self-sacrifice. When he found a need, whatever 
it was, he stopped and relieved it. He never 
passed by a distress without heeding it. He 
never excused himself when anyone wanted 
him. He never said he was too tired to help. 
He literally poured out his life in doing good 
to others, ofttimes to those who were most 
unworthy and most ungrateful. The print of 
the nails appears in all his story. 
That is what it is to give our lives for the 
brethren. That is what it is to have in our 
hands the print of the nails. Anybody can do 
gentle things for gentle people. Anybody can 
serve kind and worthy friends. There is no 
print of the nails in such service. The good 
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Cl^e ptint of ti^e ^ail^ 

Samaritan served a man who would have 
spurned him if he had met him on the street. 
A Christian man was called upon by another 
who had wronged him in ways most malign 
and offensive, asking now, however, in a great 
and pressing need, for help. Other persons 
had been appealed to by him, but had refused 
to do anything. Even his own brothers and 
sisters had turned away, saying they would 
do nothing for him. All the world had grown 
tired helping him ; no one was left. When the 
appeal came to this man to relieve the dis- 
tress, though there was no confession made 
of the grievous wrong done in the past, no 
apology offered, he quietly and without a 
word, at sore cost to himself, and cheerfully 
gave the help that was needed. See the print 
of the nails. 

Christ wants to see the print of the nails also 
in our spirit and disposition. Do we really 
think often of what it is to be Christlike in 
spirit, in temper, in mood, in manners.? Some 
people. Christians, too, are so touchy that 
their friends have to measure all their words 
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most carefully lest they offend them. Some 
people, Christians, too, seem to have no con- 
trol whatever of their temper. Some people, 
Christians, too, are so hard to live with or to 
work with that they have scarcely a friend. 
These are not prints of the nails of Christ's 
cross. 

It is not easy always to keep sweet, for we all 
have causes for irritation. It is not easy al- 
ways to be patient, to keep good temper, to 
give the soft answer that turneth away wrath, 
to oifer the other cheek when one has been 
smitten, to return kindness for unkindness, 
to overcome evil with good. Yet these are the 
print of the nails, which are the true adorn- 
ment of Christian life and character. " Love 
suffereth long, and is kind " — never grows 
unkind. Love " is not provoked " — does not 
lose temper, keeps always sweet. Love " seek- 
eth not its own " — always forgets self and 
thinks of the other who needs. 
We see the print of nails in Christ's own life. 
He never did a selfish thing, never spoke a 
selfish word. He never winced, showing 
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m^t ptint of ti^e 0am 

repugnance and acting disagreeably. It was 
not easy, either, for him — but the love in his 
heart never failed. It Is in doing the hard 
things of love that the print of the nails is 
seen. 

We show the print of the nails in our own 
hands when we prove honest and honorable 
in our dealings with others even at cost and 
loss to ourselves. Mr. Robert C. Ogden re- 
lates the following incident: 
" I will tell you what I consider an example 
of business honesty. A friend of mine, who 
died not long ago, held securities of a certain 
railroad property. Shortly before his death 
some one told him, on unimpeachable author- 
ity, that the railroad was about to go to 
pieces, and that he had better unload the 
securities. But he refused to do it, for some 
one else would have been the loser. And he was 
not a man of means. Sure enough the railroad 
company went to pieces. It was put into the 
hands of a receiver, and my friend's securities 
were reduced to almost a nominal value." 
"How can I learn the lesson.^" some one 
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asks. Christ will teach you. He says, " Come 
unto me, and learn of me." " The orange," 
says the Rev. W. L. Watkinson, " was orig- 
inally a bitter berry, yet it has been trans- 
formed and transfigured into an apple of 
gold. And our poor, cold, selfish hearts are 
capable of being wonderfully ennobled and 
adorned by the riches of love, compassion, 
sympathy and bountifulness." 



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9Influence 



[101] 



' // so men's memories not thy monument be 

Thou shalt have none. Warm hearts, and not cold 

stone, 
Must mark thy grave, or thou shalt lie unknown. 
Marbles keep not themselves; how then keep thee F" 
— John Vance Cheney, in the Century, 

f ' Upon a closet shelf I have some things — 

A tea set, dolls, a treasured book or so 
That down the years a fragrant memory flings 

Of one dead long ago. 
And at their touch I walk with springs divine; 

From out the silence one is by my side, 
A little maid whose hand has slipped from mine — 

My childish self that died." 



[102] 



CHAPTER EIGHT 

gnfluence 




NE who knew the sage well 
said, " There is one qual- 
ity I noticed in Emerson 
as more striking than in 
anyone else I ever saw, 
and that was the effect he 
had upon all who came into his presence. It 
seemed as if when a man had looked into his 
eyes, he was immediately put at his best, and 
acquitted himself on the highest plane possi- 
ble." The personality of Emerson had in it a 
quality which inspired others to their best. 
An incident in the Acts tells us that in the 
early days of the church, in times of great 
blessing, people even carried out the sick into 
the streets, that as Peter came by, at the least 
his shadow might fall upon some of them. 
Of course this healing power in Peter's 
shadow was miraculous. 

The incident, however, suggests something 
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that is not miraculous. Everybody casts a 
shadow. Every one of us exerts some kind of 
unconscious influence over others. It may not 
ahvays be a healing shadow, but it always 
makes an impression. Our influence is that 
which we unconsciously breathe out wherever 
we go. Whatever we do is made more impor- 
tant, or less, by our personality. 
The shadow of Peter healed the sick on whom 
it fell. Every one of us has some influence. 
Either we will make those we touch better, 
nobler, truer, or we will leave them not so 
good. There is something almost startling in 
the thought that in every word we speak, in 
every deed we do, in every impression we 
leave, we are setting in motion an influence 
which shall go on forever. 
We should make sure that the impression 
we make in the world shall always be good. 
We are meeting people all the while. Every 
touch we put upon their lives is for eternity. 
Will it be for beauty or for marring.? George 
Macdonald tells of a boy looking intently, 
late one afternoon, toward the heavens. His 
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^influence 



mother asked him what he was thinking of so 
seriously, and he said, " I was wishing that 
I were a painter, that I might help God paint 
his clouds and sunsets." It was a beautiful 
wish. But God does not need us to help him 
paint his clouds. Instead, however, he has 
higher and nobler work for us to do. George 
Macdonald says again, " If I can put one 
touch of rosy sunset into the life of any man 
or woman, I shall feel that I have worked with 
God." Putting a touch of beauty on a soul is 
immortal work. Clouds vanish, but the im- 
pression put upon a life is forever. 
Recently the papers told us that a distin- 
guished artist in Paris had destroyed pic- 
tures of his own, worth a hundred thousand 
dollars, representing three years of labor, 
because he had come to believe that they were 
not worthy art. While preparing them for 
public exhibition he became discouraged with 
them. He said they were not fit to be passed 
on to posterity. So with a knife and a paint 
brush he destroyed them all. But we cannot 
do this with the pictures we paint on the 
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canvas of people's lives. Think of a man of 
sixty-eight, looking back over his life, con- 
sidering what he has done, noting carefully 
the impressions he has made on other lives, 
and finding that he has been doing harm, not 
good, all these years, that he has been leaving 
blots and stains on characters instead of 
marks of beauty, that he has been influencing 
others to choose the wrong instead of the 
right. Can he in his penitence and despair 
undo all this evil, or any of it.^ Can he cut 
these unworthy pictures from their frames, 
or dash and blot them with his brush .^ No; 
what he has done must stand — not a line can 
be changed. Think of the irretrievableness of 
the hurt you did yesterday to another, or the 
temptation coming through you which caused 
another to commit a sin. One told of a letter 
he had written which he would have given 
his right hand to get back, but he could not 
recall it. We should never forget that if our 
influence is evil, we never can undo it. If we 
say a false word about another, defaming 
him, we may put upon his name a stain which 
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^Influence 



all the water of the ocean cannot wash off. 
One who by his example leads a young man 
to take his first drink, so that he becomes a 
drunkard, never can undo the evil. Pilate 
spoke more truly than he knew when he said, 
" What I have written I have written." 
No one liveth unto himself. You cannot get 
away from your entanglements with people. 
You cannot live and not influence others. If 
you were on Selkirk's Island and were the 
only human being there, you might say you 
have no influence, that it is no matter what 
you do, how you live — no matter to anybody 
but yourself. But you are not thus living by 
yourself. People throng all about you. You 
are always touching other lives, either help- 
fully or hurtfuUy. Be sure you never give 
forth any influence that will harm any other, 
or start the least trace of evil in the world. 
A great author said, at the close of his life, 
that so far as he knew, he had never written 
in any of his books one sentence that he would 
wish to recall. That was a fine test of a life. 
There can be no higher ideal in Hving than 
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m^t Winn titt 



that we may never do anything which, when 
we come to the end, we shall wish we had not 
done. 

Have you ever thought how many of every 
day's acts are induced by other acts? One 
person does a kindness to some one in trouble, 
and another, two others, twenty others, are 
influenced by it to do similar kindnesses. A 
poor boy was drawing home one day a little 
wagon filled with pieces of broken boards 
which he had gathered about some building 
operation. He was tired, his feet were bare, 
his clothing was ragged, his face was pinched 
and pale, telling of poverty and hunger. The 
boy had stopped to rest and had gone asleep. 
His cap had fallen from his head and his face 
was exposed to the sun. Then an old man, 
carrying a wood saw, passing along, saw the 
boy, and a look of pity came into his face. 
Taking from his pail his own scanty dinner, 
he laid it down beside the lad and hurried 
away. Others saw the act. A man walked 
down from his house near by and laid a silver 
half dollar beside the workman's dinner. A 
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gnfluence 



woman, living across the street, brought a 
good cap. A child came running with a pair 
of shoes and another with a coat. Other per- 
sons stopped, whispered, dropped silver. So, 
from the old wood sawyer's one kindly act, 
there had gone out this wave of influence, 
leading a score or more of people to do like- 
wise. 

We never know what may be the effect of our 
simplest doing of our duty. One day Jesus 
had been praying apart. His disciples saw 
him and stood still in reverence. Something in 
his manner made them quiet and thoughtful. 
When he rose from his knees, they asked him 
to teach them to pray. It was the unconscious 
influence of his simple act that impressed 
them. One of Horace Bushnell's great ser- 
mons Is on " Unconscious Influence." It Is 
based on the Incident of the resurrection 
morning, when Peter and John ran to the 
empty grave. John was younger than Peter, 
and fleeter of foot, and he outran the older 
man, but he stood there, awed and hesitating, 
not going into the tomb. Then Peter came 
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m^t Winn titt 



up and at once went in. Dr. Bushnell's text is, 
" Then entered therefore the other disciple 
also." Peter is unconscious, as he comes up 
and goes straight in, that he is drawing in 
his brother apostle also. So is it continually 
in life. The bold unconsciously make the 
timid brave. One nervous, restless person in 
a home makes all the household nervous and 
restless. One quiet, restful person makes it 
easier for all the family to be at peace. One 
Christian who is never troubled diffuses confi- 
dence among all the company. 
One night many years ago two young men 
were put into the same room in an English 
country inn. One of them was a heedless, 
thoughtless youth. The other, when the time 
for retiring came, quietly knelt down beside 
the bed and prayed in silence. His companion 
was strangely impressed. Fifty years after- 
ward he wrote, " That scene, so unostenta- 
tious and so unconcealed, aroused my slum- 
bering conscience, and sent an arrow into my 
heart." The result was the young man's con- 
version to God, followed by long years of 
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SJnfluence 



service as a Christian minister and as a writer 
of books which have greatly blessed the world. 
" Nearly half a century has rolled away," he 
wrote again, " with its multitudinous events, 
but that old chamber, that humble couch, 
that silently praying youth, are still present 
to my imagination and will never be for- 
gotten, even amid the splendors of heaven 
and through the ages of eternity.'' 
It was but a lowly, simple act of common 
faithfulness, modest, with no desire to be 
seen, without thought of influence save as the 
prayer would bring down blessing upon his 
own soul ; yet there went out from it a power 
which gave a noble Christian life to the world, 
and a long ministry of usefulness. Suppose 
that every young Christian shall be quietly 
and bravely faithful in every duty, in every 
place, this year, next year, all the years ; 
think of the tremendous influence that such 
faithfulness will exert everywhere. It is not 
easy always. It is easy to stand up with a 
great company, touching arms and shoulders, 
and say, " I will never fail my Master in 

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m^t WiUt We 



any place." When all are together, each 
makes the other strong. But to-morrow you 
may have to stand alone. Then it will not be 
easy. Yet it will be just as essential that you 
own Christ there. You will then be the only 
one he will have to stand for him and if you 
fail him, his cause will fail at that point. 
It may be in the office, in the store, in the 
shop, in the school, on the playground. It 
may be in the way you endure a sneer, the 
way you do a simple task, the way you meet 
an opportunity to be dishonest, the way you 
meet a request to do some one a wrong act, 
the way you answer a slight. Once in Welles- 
ley College a student was complaining bit- 
terly to the president of a certain rudeness 
that had been shown to her. The president 
said, " Why not be superior to these things 
and let them go unregarded.^ " " Miss Free- 
man," retorted the student, " I wonder how 
you would like to be insulted." Miss Freeman 
drew herself up with fine dignity and said, 
^' Miss S., there is no one living who could 
insult me." This was true. If any one had 
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31nfluence 



attempted to insult her, he would have found 
her altogether beyond his reach. No one ever 
could insult Jesus. Men might spit in his 
face, they might pluck out his beard, they 
might mock him, but they could not insult 
him. You cannot insult the stars by flinging 
mud at them. Our lives should be so inde- 
pendent of earthly conditions that no insult 
ever can reach us, hid as we are with Christ 
in God. So it may be in bearing scoffs, mock- 
ings, insults, that we will be called to be 
faithful. In whatever form the testing comes, 
be true, and fail not your Master. 
Our influence is involuntary. We cannot make 
it what we want it to be by any planning or 
posing. It distils from our life as it is. It 
is our Kfe that we need to watch, for our in- 
fluence will always be a true and exact dif- 
fusion of the essential things in us. If we 
would have our influence fragrant and sweet, 
we need only to do always the things that 
please Christ. 

Dr. W. L. Watkinson says : " Example that 

has no voice, the commonplace deed that 

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secures no chronicle, the personal magnetism 
that defies analysis — these are the precious, 
silent forces making for righteousness. No 
philosophy can explain the mysterious ele- 
ments of Christian influence; but such influ- 
ence is the supreme force working in society 
for its purification and uplifting. Let us aim 
at the sincerest, deepest, purest personal life, 
and we shall bless the world more than we 
think; we shall, unperceived by ourselves, be 
enriching it all day long with the ethers of 
heaven.'* 



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910 mn amatjs Mno? 



[115] 



"0 pilgrim, as you journey, do you ever gladly say, 
In spite of heavy burdens and the roughness of the way, 
That it does not surely matter — all the strange and hitter 

stress; 
Heat and cold, and toil and sorrow — Hwill be healed 
with blessedness, 

For the road leads home?^^ 

[^ Is it raining, little flower ? 

Be glad of rain. 
Too much sun would wither thee; 

^ Twill shine again. 
The sky is very black, 'tis true; 
But just behind it shines the blue. 

''Art thou weary, tender hearts 
Be glad of pain ! 
In sorrow sweetest things will grow, 

As flowers in rain, 
God watches; and thou wilt have the sun, 
When clouds their perfect work have done." 

— Mary F. Butts. 



[116] 



CHAPTER NINE 

9Ijs (0od aitoatjs Mnri7 




HE Bible takes especial 
pains to assure us of the 
everlastingness of God's 
love. In one passage, for 
example, it is declared that 
while even the mountains 
shall depart, God's loving-kindness shall 
never depart from his people. The word lov- 
ing-kindness suggests all that is sweet, ten- 
der, and comforting in love. There are men 
who love and are not kind. They would give 
all they have to help a friend, and yet they 
lack gentleness. They are stern, severe, 
brusque. They have not a gracious manner. 
They are not kind. Kindness is love's best. 
It not only gives, but gives in a way that 
adds a hundredfold to the value of the 

gift. 

Kindness in this passage is made still tenderer 

by the qualifying word loving — loving-kind- 

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m^t WiUv life 



ness. There may be kindness that is not lov- 
ing. It is a great comfort to know that God's 
power shall not depart, is eternal. Nothing 
ever can sweep away our refuge in the al- 
mighty strength of God. 

" God is our refuge and strength, 
A very present help in trouble. 
Therefore will we not fear, though the earth do 

change, 
And though the mountains he shaken into the 

heart of the seas.'' 

But power is cold — it lacks heart. The word 
loving-kindness means far more. It suggests 
affection, tenderness, all that is warmest, 
tenderest, and most comforting. 
The assurance is that the loving-kindness of 
God shall not fail. There never will be a day 
or an hour when he will not be kind. Can he 
be a father and not be kind to his children? 
The Bible is full of the most exquisite reveal- 
ings of God's kindness. " Like as a father 
pitieth his children, so Jehovah pitieth them 
that fear him." " As one whom his mother 
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gijs (Bon WjDav^ MnD? 

comforteth, so will I comfort thee." " The 
mountains may depart — but my loving-kind- 
ness shall not depart from thee." It is also 
in the Old Testament that we find another 
exquisite picture of the divine loving-kind- 
ness. In his farewell address Moses said to his 
people, " Underneath are the everlasting 
arms." There is comfort in the embrace of a 
father's or a mother's arms. But we are not 
sure that we shall have these arms very long ; 
no human arms are everlasting. The arms of 
God, however, will never unclasp their hold. 
Then they are ever underneath. We cannot 
fall out of their clasp. However low we may 
sink in weakness or in pain, these arms will 
always be underneath us. 

Indeed it is only when the mountains do de- 
part that we can know the best of the kind- 
ness of God. It is when father and mother 
are gone that the Lord takes us up into the 
closest, tenderest love. We need his love most 
then and the need enables us to find the bless- 
ing. In the days of earthly prosperity and 
gladness, when human love k ^bout us with 
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all its sweetness, tenderness, and satisfying- 
ness, we do not find, do not realize, the best 
of God's loving-kindness. It is concealed in 
the fulness of human love and earthly bless- 
ing which we enjoy. It is only need that finds 
and reveals the best things. But when trouble 
comes and the earthly good things that have 
meant most to us are stripped off, then we 
find the infinite blessings of the divine kind- 
ness. We should never see the stars if the 
sun did not go down. We should never dis- 
cover the grace and loving-kindness of God 
if there were never a break in our earthly 
joy. We should never know the wonder of 
God's comfort if we had no sorrow. It is when 
the visible mountains depart, and we have 
them no longer to hide in, that our hearts 
find the mountains of God, with their eternal 
refuges. 

But does God's kindness never depart from 
us? Are there no days when he really is not 
kind to us.f^ Are there no experiences in our 
lives when we can say, " God is not kind to 
me any more.?" Such questions as these are 
[120] 



continually asked by those who are in trouble 
or sorrow, those who have had great losses 
or bitter disappointments. " Where can you 
find the loving-kindness of God in my experi- 
ences of the past months ? " one asks. We may 
not be able to interpret the meaning of these 
strange providences, which so often stagger 
the faith of earnest souls. We do know, how- 
ever, that there never is a break in the divine 
loving even when our eyes can see no love. 
We are sure, for example, that God knows all 
the things that try us. The prophet taunted 
the worshippers of Baal when, after calling 
upon their god all day, they got no answer, 
and said : " Cry aloud. Either he is musing, 
or he is on a journey, or peradventure he 
sleepeth and must be awakened.'' But there 
can be no such taunts concerning our God, 
for he is never absent when we call, nor 
asleep, needing to be awakened, nor ignorant 
of our condition, needing to be informed. 

" He knows the bitter , weary way: 
He knows the endless striving j day by day. 
The souls that weep, the souls that pray, 
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" He knows how hard the fight hath been. 
The clouds that come our lives between. 
The wounds the world hath never seen, 

" He knows when faint and worn we sink, 
How deep the pain, how near the brink 
Of dark despair we pause and shrink. 

" He knows ! Oh, thought so full of bliss, 
For though our joy on earth we miss, 
We still can bear it, feeling this — 
He knowsJ^ 

Does he know all that we suffer, and yet send 
no relief? Does he know the wrongs his child 
is enduring and not interfere to check their 
continuance? Does he know the pain your 
friend is experiencing, hear the prayers that 
are made so agonizingly, and yet bring no 
help? Yes, he knows. The crippled girl in 
Ralph Connor's story could not understand 
how God could be good and let her suffer 
so. Her friend asked her about the plaster 
jacket the doctors had put on her. 
" Did it hurt you when they put it on ? " 
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910 (0oD aitoat^ i^tiTD? 

" It was awful," she replied, shuddering as 
she thought of it. 

" What a pity your father wasn't there ! " 
said her friend. 
" Why, he was there.'' 

" Your father there, and did not stop the 
doctors' hurting you so cruelly? " 
" Why, he let them hurt me. It's going to 
help me, perhaps make me able to walk about 
some day." 

" Oh, then they did not hurt you in cruelty, 
just because they wanted to? I mean that 
your father loves you, though he let you be 
hurt ; or, rather, he let the doctors hurt you 
just because he loves you, and wants to make 
you well." 

The girl became very thoughtful. Presently 
the light began to shine in her face. Then she 
asked, as the mystery of it all began to be- 
come clear to her, " Do you mean that though 
God let me fall and suffer so, he loves me? " 
" Her friend nodded. Presently she said, as 
if to herself 5 " I wonder if that can be 
true." 

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We are sure also that God could relieve us 
of the things that are so hard for us to bear 
— could, if he would. There is nothing that 
God could not do. Pilate boasted to Jesus 
that he had power to crucify him, or to re- 
lease him, as he chose. " No," said Jesus ; 
" thou canst have power over me only as it 
is given thee from above." This is God's 
world, and nothing can get out of God's 
hands. " My loving-kindness shall not depart 
from thee." 

What, really, is God's loving-kindness? At 
first we may think it is only tenderness, that 
it is always pitiful and compassionate, that it 
cannot permit pain or suffering. But is that 
God's kindness.? There are two ways of show- 
ing kindness. One is by being always tender 
and keeping our loved one from every rough- 
ness, every self-denial, by letting him always 
have his own way — that is what some people 
mean by kindness. Some parents show this 
sort of kindness to their children, denying 
them nothing, never restraining them, never 
permitting them to suffer anything that 
[124] 



would give pain. The other sort of kindness 
thinks of the best things and seeks the 
good of the child, not merely his ease or 
pleasure. 

Sometimes God lets us sufPer, causes us to 
suffer. Is he then unkind.^ Does a loving par- 
ent never willingly let his child suffer.? Your 
child is hurt, has a foot crushed under a car- 
wheel on the street. The surgeons consider 
what should be done and decide that there 
must be an amputation, or the child's life 
cannot be saved. As the little one is carried 
to the operating room, would you begin to 
cry out that the doctors are unkind, cruel .^ 
Oh, no ; it does not seem kindness to use the 
knife, but you know it would be most cruel 
unkindness not to do it in the circum- 
stances. 

When God says to you in the morning, " My 
loving-kindness shall not depart from you," 
he does not mean that you will have no suffer- 
ing, no self-denial, no pain, no hardship ; he 
means that the whole course of his treatment 
of you that day will be toward the fashion- 
[125] 



Ci^e ^itier life 



ing of your life Into Christlikeness, the train- 
ing of your powers for usefulness. Sometimes 
he will let you suffer, perhaps torturingly, 
seeming to disregard your happiness. But it 
is just because he loves you that he does this. 
If he saved you from all suffering and pain, 
he would really be unkind. Some day you 
will understand that the truest kindness is 
always that which makes your life better, 
richer, nobler, and a greater blessing to the 
world. 



[126] 



ptvil in tift'^ Ci^ange^ 



[127] 



f ^ There^s a Something that maketh a palace 

Out of four little walls and a prayer; 
A Something that seeth a garden 

In one little flower that is fair; 
That tuneth two hearts to one purpose 

And maketh one heart of two; 
That smiles when the sky is a gray one 

And smiles when the sky is blue. 

i' Without it no garden hath fragrance, 

Tho' it holdeth the wide world's blooms; 
Without it a palace a prison 

With cells for banqueting rooms; 
This Something that halloweth sorrow 

And stealeth the sting from care; 
This Something that maketh a palace 

Out of four little walls and a prayer.^' 



[128] 



CHAPTER TEN 

pttil in JLtfe'js Cl^angeu 




HERE is always peril in 
change. The more sud- 
denly the change comes, 
and the greater it is, the 
more is the danger that 
hurt will result. There is 
danger in the ordinary changes of life, from 
infancy to childhood, from childhood to 
youth, from youth to manhood and woman- 
hood. Many do not make the transition safely. 
There always are certain things that must 
be left behind as each period is abandoned 
for the one that succeeds it. The mother does 
not like to see her boy lose his curls and his 
boyish looks and ways. She wishes she could 
keep her baby always. But it would be a sad 
thing if he kept his childish manners, his 
immature development, his baby face and 
looks. This would be abnormal, an arrested 
growth, becoming a lasting grief. The transi- 
[129] 



m^t Wititv life 



tion must be made, and there is not meant to 
be any loss in it, but rather a gain. As the 
blossom fades and falls off, but leaves its 
secret of life behind for the beginning of the 
fruit, so the change from boyhood is not in- 
tended to be the losing of anything, but an 
unfolding, a development. The true avails of 
childish sweetness and beauty stay in the 
heart and life of youth, and become its 
strength. The change is safely passed when 
the new emerges from the old in healthful 
grace and vigor. 

But there is always danger in the transition, 
and not always is it safely passed. There is 
need of great wisdom in those who care for 
the child, for its education, for its health, 
for the directing of the influences which af- 
fect its growth. Many careers are wrecked 
in the early formative periods. It is the mis- 
sion of the ideal home to be in every way a 
wholesome place for children to grow up in, 
a place of love, of joy and of cheer, not of 
over-kindness or over-indulgence, not of forc- 
ing processes or excessive stimulation, not of 
[130] 



ptvil in Kfe'js Ci^angejs 

dulness, dreariness, or lack of vitalizing and 
energizing influences. The true education in 
this educational period is that which insures 
wholesome outcome, developing into richer, 
stronger, more beautiful life. 
There is peril also in the changes that come 
through life's experiences. The impression 
prevails that pain and sorrow, for example, 
are always beneficent. It is admitted that 
there is danger in unbroken prosperity, in a 
life without cross or trial, but somehow it is 
widely felt or believed that trouble always 
brings blessing, that at least it is a safe con- 
dition, tending toward good. Yet there is 
peril also in suff'ering. It does not always 
make people better, sweeter in spirit, more 
patient, more heavenly minded. It is its mis- 
sion to produce such results. There is a Beati- 
tude for those that mourn. Tribulation is 
the way to the kingdom. The hard things 
of life are meant to be disciplinary. Earth- 
ly loss should bring us heavenly gain. Pain 
should sweeten our spirits. Disappoint- 
ments should teach us to accept God's 
[131] 



Ci^e Wintv life 



appointments. We should always be better 
for affliction. 

But not always are we thus helped and made 
better by trial. Sickness sometimes makes 
people unhappy, discontented, impatient, ex- 
acting, selfish. Pain sometimes brings out not 
the best but the worst in one's nature. Some 
men and women are sorely hurt in their dis- 
position by it. Loss sometimes proves loss 
indeed, leaving nothing in its place to supply 
the lack of that which is taken away. Grief 
makes some people hard and bitter. They re- 
fuse to submit to God when the cross is heavy 
and grow rebellious. 

Thus the experience of trouble always has its 
perils. The deep waters of sorrow have their 
hidden rocks and there is no chart which 
marks them; those who pass over them need 
a wise and skilful Pilot. At no time do we 
need the divine guidance more than when we 
are passing through sore trials. The only 
safe way is to commit ourselves to the will 
of God and the heavenly guardianship. Then 
no trouble can harm us. The fiercest storms 
[ 132 ] 



pttil in life'js Cl^angejs 

cannot injure us when we are beneath God's 
sheltering care. 

'^ God plants us where we grow. 
It is not that because a bud is born 
At a wild brier^s end full in the wild beasVs 

way. 
We ought to pluck and put it out of reach on 

the oak tree-top J^ 

An experience of change which has its 
pecuHar perils is when one suddenly passes 
out of prosperous circumstances into poverty. 
Only the other day a little family entered an 
experience of this kind. They had been en- 
joying all the comforts of a beautiful home. 
Money was abundant. No want was ungrati- 
fied. The father was in a successful business. 
The mother was carefully sheltered and free 
from care. The only daughter was at school 
in another city. The father, not content with 
a good, regular business, tried speculation — 
a temptation to whose fascination many men 
yield. For a time he was successful and his 
success lured him on. Failing in some ven- 
[133] 



Ci^e Wiiitv life 



tures, he invested more, hoping to win back 
what he had lost, and lost more, until all was 
gone. The beautiful home had to be given up, 
pictures and furniture were sold, the daugh- 
ter was recalled from school and began seek- 
ing a position in which she could become a 
bread-winner. The little family is living in 
a boarding-house, in pinching and uncon- 
genial circumstances. 

All this is pathetic enough, but this is not the 
worst of it. Many people are always poor, 
with experiences of want, self-denial and 
hardship all their days, and yet live sweetly, 
beautifully and nobly through it all. They 
have never known any other condition. The 
best things in their lives are the fruits of their 
privation, their toil, and their pressing need. 
But all is different with this family. In the 
past, until now, they had never had a wish 
denied them. They had always been used to 
luxury, never finding it necessary to go with- 
out anything they wanted, and this made it 
very hard for them to accept the bareness of 
their new condition. They had been accus- 
[134] 



ptvil in life'js Cl^anQejS 

tomed to a good social position, and that is 
now gone — they have left their old neighbor- 
hood among well-to-do neighbors, and are 
staying on a very plain quiet street. People 
probably just as good as they are live all 
about them and are really quite happy, be- 
cause they have always been familiar with 
poverty's cot and poverty's fare. There is no 
dishonor in living in such circumstances. God 
loves the poor, and it may be seen at the last 
that poverty has done more for the kingdom 
of Christ, for human happiness, and for the 
enriching of the world, than wealth has done. 

'^ Poverty bought our little lot, 
Flooded with daisy blooms; 
Poverty built our little cot. 
And furnished all its rooms, 

*^ Yet Peace leans over Labor^s chair, 
Joys at the fireside throng, 
While up and down on Poverty^s stair 
Love sings the whole day long.^' 

But with this little family all is different — 

they have not been used to poverty — and the 

[135] 



m^t Wihtt life 



danger Is that they will be hurt in the new 
experience. Their family life appears to be 
suffering. They are all discouraged and seem 
to be less joyous and less affectionate. The 
mother gives way to her feeling of discontent 
and she has not her old cheerfulness, courage 
and kindliness. The father has not proved 
himself brave and strong, but seems to have 
succumbed to defeat and goes about like a 
broken man. The daughter, unused to care, 
to responsibility, untrained for work and for 
endurance, finds it hard to face life as a 
working girl. She is willing enough, even 
eager to take up her burden, but she is un- 
prepared for it, and it is not going to be 
easy for her to get the preparation, since she 
must begin at once to provide for herself 
and also do her share in providing for her 
family. 

It is evident that there are dangers in this 
experience for this young girl as well as for 
the others of the family. It will not be easy 
for her to pass through it without losing 
something of the beauty, the gentleness, the 
[136] 



simplicity, the charm of her hfe. The burden 
is too heavy for her young shoulders. The 
roughness of the world may hurt the bloom 
of her life and rob her of somewhat of the 
brightness of girlhood. It is a serious loss to 
her to have to give up her school life to 
become a bread-winner. It seems to be too 
great a sacrifice for her to be required to 
make. There is danger that she may lose 
heart, that her spirit may be broken and her 
life irreparably hurt. 

The problem of passing through a change 
like this is a very serious one. There is great 
danger that harm shall result. It is possible, 
however, to meet the experience successfully. 
Burdens, if accepted cheerfully and borne 
heroically, become a help, not a hindrance. 
The trials of life all have in them their op- 
portunity for learning new lessons, gaining 
new strength, reaching new heights. The 
effects upon us of the changes through which 
we pass depend upon ourselves. All life is 
meant to be disciplinary — it is God's inten- 
tion that each event and experience shall 
[137] 



m^t WiUv Life 



make us better, more beautiful in character, 
fitter for the work of hfe. We are ahvays at 
school. It is not the divine will that anything 
that comes into our life shall do us harm, 
shall spoil our life or prove a hindrance to 
our real progress. Flowers grow under the 
snow in the late winter, unhurt by the cold 
and the ice. The beautiful things of love 
should be kept gentle and lovely under the 
shelter of divine love, through even the hard- 
est experiences. If only we meet the experi- 
ences of life as we may, however severe they 
may be in their natural consequences, they 
may be made into blessing and good. We need 
only to keep ourselves in the love of God and 
then no harm of any kind can come to us. 
" The highest joy is an edelweiss; it grows 
only bosomed in the snow and nursed by 
tempests. There is no joy like the divinely 
joyful sorrow, as there is no strength like the 
divinely strengthened weakness. 
Every day brings its changes, its sudden 
trials and troubles, its losses, its disappoint- 
ments, ofttimes its tragedies. It is well that 
[138] 



ptvil in life'js Cl^angeji 

we train ourselves to calmness and peace of 
mind, to self-control, so that we may never 
be swept away by the surprises of life and 
led to do rash and foolish things. The other 
day a family was startled to hear without 
warning that a son who was only a boy was 
married a week before to a girl of his own 
age. The first eifect on all the household was 
consternation, which quickly passed into 
anger. Bitter words were spoken and there 
was danger that deeds of violence would be 
done, things for which the family would have 
grieved afterward. Then was the time when 
the soft answer that turneth away wrath 
was spoken, and peaceable counsel prevailed. 
There was danger of the wrecking of the 
happiness of the two young lives and the 
rending of the cordial relations in two fam- 
ilies, with the starting of feuds and strifes 
which would have gone on for years. Hap- 
pily, however, these perils were avoided. It 
is said that when a twig or even the smallest 
branch of a tree is bruised, all the tree begins 
to send of its life to heal the wound. Thus it 
[139] 



Ci^e Wiuv life 



was in these two homes. The folly of a hasty 
marriage was condoned and all the influence 
of the two families brought to bear to make 
the best of it. The young people were given 
every opportunity not only to be happy, but 
also to hold their place of love in the hearts 
of their respective households. There may 
still be regret at the hastiness of the mar- 
riage, but forgiveness will be full and com- 
plete, and unless further mistakes are made, 
all will go on happily. 

The real problem of life is not to avoid hard 
and unpleasant experiences, surprises of sor- 
row, trying things, vicissitudes in circum- 
stances, but in whatever changes or trials 
that may come, to be divinely led, preserved 
from mistakes and follies, guarded from evil 
in every form and brought into better, more 
beautiful life. Thus the changes that come 
will prove to be part of God's plan for our 
lives. The incidents of the common days will 
become links in the chain of providence. 
When we put our perplexing circumstances, 
whatever they are, into the hands of God, 
[140] 



to be untangled by him and then ordered and 
directed in his wise way of love, we have noth- 
ing to do in the matter but our simple duty. 
We must keep our own hands off the tangles, 
believing that in God's own good time and in 
his own way he will bring about blessing, 
beauty and good. 

^^ / am glad to think 
I am not hound to make the world go right: 
But only to discover and to do 
With cheerful heart the work that God appoints. 

'^ I will trust in him 
That he can hold his own; and I will take 
His will, above the work he sendeth me. 
To be my chief est good.^^ 



[141] 



i^elping hv ptavn 



[143] 



^^ Lord J when we pray, 'Thy kingdom come!' 
Then fold our hands without a care 
For souls whom Thou hast died to save, 
We do hut mock Thee with our prayer. 

'/ Thou couldst have sent an angel hand 
To call Thine erring children home; 
And thus through heavenly ministries 
On earth Thy kingdom might have come. 

'' But since to human hands like ours 
Thou hast committed work divine, 
Shall not our eager hearts make haste 

To join their feeble powers with Thine f" 



[144] 



CHAPTER ELEVEN 



i^elptng bt pvaigtt 




E are taught to pray for 
others. This is one of 
Hfe's highest and plainest 
duties. St. Paul exhorts 
that supplications, pray- 
ers, intercessions, and 
thanksgivings be made for all men. St. James 
exhorts us to pray one for another, adding 
that " the supplication of a righteous man 
availeth much in its working." Thus prayer 
is put down among the active, working forces 
of the world, one of the ways in which we can 
do good to others. It avails much in its work- 
ing. 

When we think of it carefully we shall find 
that there really is no way in which we can 
do so much for others as by praying for 
them. Prayer is not merely a heart sigh, an 
expression of well-wishing — it lays hold upon 
the hand of God and brings divine power to 
[ 145 ] 



m)t WiUv life 



bear in helping and blessing those for whom 
we make intercession. There always are things 
which we can do for others with our own 
hands — we mock God when we try to put 
our duties off on him — ^but there are many 
things which we can do only by prayer. 
Friendship is precious and sacred, but friend- 
ship that does not pray lacks a vital element. 
It leaves God out. A Christian young woman 
is loved by a man who laughs at prayer, and 
laughs at her because she believes in prayer. 
Is it any wonder that the young woman hesi- 
tates to intrust her life, with all the interests 
of her future, to one who, though she believes 
him to be true, honorable and worthy, yet 
cannot give her the help that can come only 
through a true friend's prayers.^ Earth's 
sweetest flowers need heaven's dew to make 
them perfect in beauty and fragrance. Earth's 
best things are incomplete without heaven's 
benedictions. Love needs divine strength and 
grace to make it complete. An old writer said, 
'' Pray for whom thou lovest ; thou wilt never 
have any comfort of his friendship for whom 
[146] 



I^elping bt ptavtt 



thou dost not pray." Then some one writes 
as a response to this counsel: 

^^ Yes J pray for whom thou lovest; if uncounted 

wealth were thine, 
The treasures of the boundless deep, the riches 

of the mine, 
Thou couldst not to thy cherished friends a 

gift so dear impart, 
As the earnest benediction of a deeply prayerful 

heart. ^' 

" Pray for whom thou lovest." Nothing else 
you may do for your friend can possibly mean 
so much. Our hands are awkward and unskil- 
ful. Ofttimes even in our best-meant efforts 
we only hurt the life we try to heal with 
our touch. At the best we are poor bunglers 
in helping others. We have no skill or wisdom 
to help in the deepest ways. We do the wrong 
thing. We lift away burdens it were better 
our friends should carry longer, for our bur- 
dens do not fall by accident upon our shoul- 
ders; they are God's gifts and bring bless- 
ings. We make the path easy when it were 
[147] 



m^t WiUv life 



better it had been left rough. We hurry some 
providence to get the blessing to our friend 
sooner, and in doing this give him fruit yet 
unripe, which can only do him harm. It were 
better for him to wait longer and get the 
fruit mellow and ripe. How glad we should 
be that we can put our friends into God's 
hands when they have sorrows and need com- 
forting, or are in difficulties, longing for de- 
liverance, or have hard questions which they 
do not know how to answer. 
It has been said that wrong advice has 
wrecked destinies. As experience increases and 
we learn more of the seriousness of living we 
shrink more and more, if we are wise, from 
giving advice. How do we know what our 
friends ought to do in this perplexity ; which 
of two ways is the better way for them to 
take ; how they can meet this emergency most 
wisely ; whether they ought to accept or de- 
cline this friendship that is offered to them.^ 
We think of our friends in their troubles, 
sympathize with them and wish we could re- 
lieve them ; but how do we know that relief 
[148] 



i^elping bt pvan^ 



from trouble would be best for them? We 
would not dare to take from them the cross 
they are bearing — how do we know that we 
would not be proving their worst enemy If 
we did? The cross is meant not to crush, but 
to lift. Almost the only safe thing our love 
can do is to ask God to do what he knows to 
be the best things for those he loves. Not to 
pray for them, but to try instead to do our 
own kindnesses for them, is to put our poor, 
ignorant, blundering help instead of God's 
wise and perfect help. 

Failing to pray for our friends Is therefore 
a sin against them. It is also a sin against 
God. The law of love requires us to think of 
others and to do as much for them as we 
would do for ourselves. " Thou shalt love thy 
neighbor as thyself." We understand this of 
deeds of kindness. But prayer Is one of the 
duties of love, and we sin against our brother 
when we fail to pray for him. The mother 
who does for her child all that the tenderest 
human love can do and yet never prays for 
him, never seeks for him divine protection, 
[149] 



C]^e Wintv life 



guidance, blessing, is surely both wronging 
her child and sinning against God. 
The duty of praying for others is clearly 
taught by Christ himself. It is woven into 
the whole of what is known as the Lord's 
Prayer. This prayer is addressed to " Our 
Father," not "My Father." It is not a 
prayer which we are to offer for ourselves 
alone. We may use it when we are alone, but 
we are not to think only of ourselves. We are 
to pray also for our Father's other children. 
" Give us this day our daily bread." We are 
not to think only of our own need — that 
would be most unchristian selfishness ; we are 
to think of others as well. We are always in 
danger of narrowing our petitions to our- 
selves, and our own needs, while others' needs 
are crowded out. The last place in the world 
for selfishness is when we are bowing before 
God in prayer. Love should always then be 
at its best. 

*' Bow thy head and pray 
That while thy brother starves to-day 
[150] 



i^elping hv pta^tv 



Thou mayest not eat thy bread at ease; 
Pray that no health or wealth or peace 
May lull thy soul while the world lies 
Suffering J and claims thy sacrificed' 

It is not enough to pray for our friends. 
Jesus teaches us that we are to love our 
enemies and be kind to those who are unkind 
to us. " For if ye love them that love you, 
what reward have ye? do not even the pub- 
licans the same? And if ye salute your breth- 
ren only, what do ye more than others? do 
not even the Gentiles the same?'' The same 
teaching applies to prayer. It is not enough 
to pray for those who are grateful and kind 
to us, who pray for us, who do things for us. 
We may pray also for those who treat us 
badly. 

There is much ingratitude in the world. After 
the greatest kindness shown by us, running 
sometimes through years, those who have re- 
ceived help from us may forget everything 
we have done, and return only neglect and 
even wrong for all our love and service of 
[151] 



Cl^e WiUt Ulz 



past years. What is our Christian duty to 
those who may thus have requited our kind- 
ness with unkindness? Have we a right to re- 
sent the evil we have received? Does the injus- 
tice done to us free us from the duty of love 
to those who have done the injustice? May we 
cease to pray for them ? When met by such an 
experience of ingratitude, Samuel said to the 
people of Israel that he would be sinning 
against God if he ceased to pray for them 
after they had been so ungrateful to him. 
This question may become real and practical 
any day to any of us. We may be treated 
unjustly by one to whom we have been a 
faithful friend for years. Will that absolve 
us from being kind any longer to the un- 
grateful person ? No ; Christian love is not 
to be affected by any treatment it may re- 
ceive from others. The true patriot is to be 
loyal to his country even though the country 
has been ungrateful to him. The Christian 
in his private relations is never to let his 
heart become embittered by any injustice 
done to him. 

[152] 



i^elping bt pta^tx 



Sometimes beside the brackish sea you will 
find a spring of water gushing up, as sweet 
as any that bursts from the hillside. When 
the tide is low you dip up its clear water 
and drink it and it refreshes you. A few 
hours later you come again and find the tide 
covering the place, its bitter waters rolling 
over the spring ; but in a little while you pass 
again, and now the tide has rolled out to sea. 
You find the spring again and its clear 
streams are pouring up as sweet as before, 
without a trace of the brackishness of the 
sea in which the spring has been folded so 
long. So should it be with the love of the 
Christian heart. No wrong, no ingratitude, 
no cruelty, should ever embitter it. We should 
never cease to pray for others because they 
have been unkind to us. 

We have a very definite word of our Master's 
on this matter. Jesus knew that our hearts 
are apt to grow bitter against those who do 
not love us, and to show resentment to those 
who do us harm, and so he gave this com- 
mandment : " I say unto you. Love your 
[153] 



ci^e Wiatx Utt 



enemies, and pray for them that despitefuUy 
use you and persecute you." He gave the 
reason, too — " that ye may be the children 
of your Father who is in heaven." That is 
the way our Father loves — ^he loves his ene- 
mies, he blesses those that curse him, he is 
kind to the unthankful and the evil. There- 
fore if any one is harming us, that is the 
very person Christ especially commands us 
to pray for to-day. 

When you kneel at the close of the day to 
pray and when you name in intercession those 
who have shown you kindness, number with 
them all who during the day may have been 
unkind, any who have injured you or who 
have spoken falsely or bitterly of you. " Bless 
them that curse you, do good to them that 
hate you, and pray for them that despite- 
fuUy use you, and persecute you." 



[154] 



I3eing a Comfort to flDtl^er^ 



[155] 



^ Afterwhile — and one intends 
To be gentler to his friends — 
To walk with them in the hush 
Of still evenings, o^er the plush 
Of home-leading fields, and stand 
Long at 'parting, hand in hand: 
One, in time, will joy to take 
New resolves for some one's sake, 
And wear them the look that lies 
Clear and pure in other eyes — 
He will soothe and reconcile 
His own conscience — afterwhile.^' 

— James Whitcomb RileYo 



[156] 



CHAPTER TWELVE 



^Betng a Comfort to ^t])tv^ 




UST after the death of 
Queen Victoria this beau- 
tiful story was told: She 
was visiting the wounded 
soldiers who had been 
brought back from South 
Africa. She was specially distressed by the 
suffering of one man who had been terribly 
hurt. 

" Is there nothing that I can do for you ? " 
asked the Queen. 

The soldier replied, "Nothing, your Majesty, 
unless you would thank my nurse for her 
great kindness to me." 

The Queen turned to the nurse, and said, 
with tears in her eyes, " I do thank you with 
all my heart for your kindness to this poor 
wounded son of mine." 

There was something exquisitely beautiful in 

the soldier's unselfish thought of the nurse 

[157] 



m)t Wintv life 



who had been such a comfort to him in his 
sufferings. His gratitude was so great that 
he sought even the Queen's honoring rather 
for her than for himself. 

There is a beautiful charm in such self-for- 
getfulness as this, such entire elimination of 
one's self in thinking of others. There are 
those who reach this rare beauty of spirit. 
There are mothers who live for their chil- 
dren so utterly that they seek only tlieir 
good, their happiness, never asking anything 
for themselves, never sparing themselves any 
cost or sacrifice to serve them. There is in 
many a home an unmarried sister who devotes 
herself to the comfort and good of the other 
members of her household with complete un- 
selfishness, ministering to them in countless 
ways, with never a thought of rest, ease, or 
advantage for herself. Then, outside the 
circle of home, where we seem to have a right 
to expect service of love, there are those who 
live to do good, to give cheer, to be a com- 
fort to others. 

There really is no higher reach in life than 
[158] 



OBeing a Comfort to C^tl^erjs 

that of being a blessing to others in one's 
own place. Every noble-spirited young per- 
son is ambitious to live well and helpfully, 
to do something worth while. But not all the 
really heroic things bring fame in this world. 
One may be a hero in God's sight and yet 
never hear a huzza from any human lips. 
When the country needed defenders, one boy 
entered the service, fought bravely, rose to 
honor, and returned, when the war was over, 
with high rank. He was greeted as a hero. 
His younger brother had stayed at home 
caring for his widowed mother and the little 
children — only a common farmer, without 
fame. But with God he was no less a hero 
than the oth^r. 

Then it is not only what we do, but even more 
what we are, that makes our lives count in 
their helpfulness and their capacity for giv- 
ing pleasure to others. Some people are full 
of activity, even of eager helpfulness, and 
yet they are not always a comfort to their 
fellows. They have faults which mar the 
charm and the influence of their personality 
[159] 



m^t wmv life 



— dead flies which cause the oil of the per- 
fumer to send forth an evil odor. They are 
not sweet, they lack humility, they are not 
really unselfish. People do not go to them 
with their perplexities and sorrows — there 
Is In them something which hinders the out- 
flow of confidence. One said, speaking of an- 
other, " He Is one of the best men In the 
world, and Is always offering his help, but 
som.ehow I could never go to him with my 
questions or with a sorrow." There Is some- 
thing in certain people's religion which mars 
Its beauty. If we would be a comfort to 
others, our lives must be rich In lovingness. 
A mother said of her daughter, " She makes 
a beautiful climate for me." That is what 
we should make for the people who live near 
to us. 

In one of his epistles St. Paul speaks of 
certain of his friends as " men that have been 
a comfort unto me." He was In prison, and 
In his loneliness these men had cheered and 
strengthened him. They had been kind to 
him, and their kindness had comforted him. 
[160] 



QBeing a Comfort to £) timers! 

He mentions by name three men who had 
specially helped him in this way. The first 
was Aristarchus, whom he calls " my fellow- 
prisoner." Perhaps he voluntarily stayed 
with the old minister in prison. No doubt he 
show^ed his love in many ways. Some one has 
defined a friend as " the person who comes 
in when all the world has gone out." That is 
what Aristarchus had been to Paul. 
Another who had been a comfort to him 
was Mark. We are glad to have St. Paul 
write this, for many years before Mark had 
failed him, and the apostle w^ould not trust 
him again. It is pleasant to know that Mark 
lived long enough and well enough to win 
again his old friend's confidence and affec- 
tion. 

There is another name in this list of honor — 
" Jesus that is called Justus." Not a hint is 
given of the way he had been a comfort to 
the apostle. Perhaps he had just been kind 
to him, doing nothing that could be written 
down, and yet no doubt his life was full of 
little gentle ministries that helped St. Paul 
[161] 



m^t m^u life 



more bravely and cheerfully to endure his 
chain. At least this man had been his friend, 
and just being a friend when one needs friends 
is something gloriously worth while. Some 
one has said, " The greatest thing that a 
man can do for his Heavenly Father is to 
be kind to some of the Father's other chil- 
dren." 

The friends that St. Paul names were a com- 
fort to him because they sympathized with 
him with a sympathy that was not obtrusive, 
not officious, not always reminding him of 
his chain and prison, but that manifested 
itself in quiet, unostentatious, inspiring ways. 
The word comfort is from a root which means 
to strengthen. It is like our noun cordial, in 
its old sense, something that invigorates, 
exhilarates ; something that stimulates the 
circulation, making the pulses quicker, the 
life fuller. St. Paul's friends were a cordial to 
him, not lessening his sufferings nor lighten- 
ing his burdens, but making him braver and 
stronger for endurance. They were a comfort 
to him. 

[ 162 ] 



Being a Comfott to €>t]^er0 

St. Paul himself was a wonderful example of 
a man who was a comfort to others. What his 
life, with its rich fulness and its genius for 
friendship, must have been to those who came 
into personal companionship with him ! What 
a privilege it was to his fellow-craftsmen to 
have him working with them at their tent- 
making! His presence must have made the 
work seem lighter and the atmosphere of the 
shop brighter. We do not begin to realize 
what it means to us to live with certain peo- 
ple, to have them for friends, to drink from 
the fulness of their life. Harriet Prescott 
Spofford wrote of Phillips Brooks, after his 
death : 

" Perhaps we did not know how much of God 
Was walking with us. 

Surely not forlorn 
Are men, when such great overflow of heaven 
Brings down the light of the eternal morn 
Into the earth's deep shadows, where they plod. 
The slaves of sorrow.^' 

Men did not know how much of God was 

walking with them when they had St. Paul 

[163] 



%^t Wintt tiU 



for companion, friend, teacher. The more 
closely we study his life and his words the 
more do we find in him and in his teachings 
of love, of the delicate refinements of love, of 
all gentleness and kindness. The thirteenth 
chapter of First Corinthians is matchless as 
a picture. It is like a dream in its beauty. 
But it was a dream which was realized in the 
writer's own life. " Love suffereth long, and 
is kind; love envieth not — doth not behave 
itself unseemly, seeketh not its own, is not 
provoked, taketh not account of evil." Some 
people praise this wonderful picture of love, 
but do not think of living it. What a comfort 
we would be to each other if we really lived 
in all our common days the teaching of this 
great chapter ! 

Some people have love in their hearts, while 
in disposition, in speech, in expression, they 
lack lovingness. St. Paul teaches us not only 
to have a kindly heart, but a gracious man- 
ner. In his epistles he exhorts to the rarest 
delicacy of courtesy. Perhaps we do not give 
sufficient emphasis to this phase of Christian 
[164] 



isetng a Comfort to ^ti^tt^ 

culture. We condemn lying, as well we may, 
but we forget that rudeness is a sin, too, as 
are also thoughtlessness, discourtesy, censori- 
ousness, sharpness in speech or tone. St. Paul 
names " whatsoever things are lovely " among 
the ideal qualities of Christian character. 
Our religion should be beautiful, winning. 
We are to please others for their good, to 
edification. 

Those who live thus gently, thoughtfully, 
beautifully, will always be a comfort to others 
with whom they live. A pastor was commend- 
ing religion to a boy, expressing the hope 
that he would give his heart to God in his 
youth. " Religion is a continual joy," he 
said. " Look at your sister, Sarah. How much 
that dear girl enjoys her religion!" ^^ Yes," 
drawled the boy, with frank candor, " Sade 
may enjoy her religion, but nobody else in 
the house enjoys it." The boy's judgment 
may have been harsh and unjust, but there 
are professing Christians of whom it is true 
that their families do not enjoy their re- 
ligion. It is not sweet. It is not a comfort to 
[165] 



Cl^e Wititt tift 



people. It Is critical, rasping, censorious, 
exacting. It was a serious condemnation of 
this girl's religion that her family did not 
enjoy it. 

A close observer has said that " Many a sister 
spoils her testimony in the church by her 
tongue in the kitchen." Another has said, 
" There are people who lead us heavenward, 
but stick pins in us all the way." In a con- 
versation overheard on a railway train, one 
reports catching this fragment of talk: 
" Yes, I suppose she's good — I know she is. 
But she isn't pleasant to live with." A good- 
ness that isn't pleasant to live with is not the 
kind that is most needed in this world. We 
may do all our duties faithfully, conscien- 
tiously, bearing our share of the burdens and 
cares, and yet if we are not pleasant to live 
with, we fail in the most essential quality of 
love. An unlovely spirit, frowns and chilling 
looks, sharp, impatient words, over-balance 
the eager, painstaking service that does so 
much to help in practical ways. What the 
person is mars the value of what he does. 
[166] 



13ein8 a Comfott to ^ti^tv^ 

After all, being " pleasant to live with " is 
one of the final tests of Christlikeness in life. 
You are careful never to fail to do all the 
little things of duty. Your friends can never 
say that you are inattentive to them, that 
you leave undone the kindly deeds of neigh- 
borliness or even brotherliness. But if, mean- 
while, you are not pleasant to live with, is 
there not something lacking? The ideal re- 
ligious life is one that is a comfort to others 
as well as a help. It is gracious and winning 
in its spirit. It is a blessing to all it touches. 
It makes one a comfort not only in his own 
home, where even his dog has a better time 
because the master is a " Jesus Christian," 
but also in his church, among his neighbors, 
in the office or shop where he works. Then, 
withal, it makes him pleasant to live with. 
This word of St. Paul's really tests the Chris- 
tian life of every one of us. Are we a comfort 
to people? Are the boys and girls a comfort 
to their mothers and fathers? or do they vex 
them, fret them, keep them awake at night 
with anxiety? Are husbands and wives a real 
[167] 



m^t Wihtv life 



comfort to each other? Are we a comfort to 
our neighbors, kindly, thoughtful, obliging, 
ready always to be helpful and gracious? It 
has been named as the mark of a gentleman 
that he never gives pain to another. An Eng- 
lish poet called Jesus " the first true gentle- 
man who ever breathed." He never gave pain 
to any one. Love characterized him in all 
circumstances and experiences. Even when he 
was being betrayed, he was still the refined 
gentleman. When he was being nailed to the 
cross he prayed for his executioners. Love 
never failed in him. He was always a comfort 
to others. 

We as Christ's followers should be so full of 
his spirit, have our lives so permeated with 
his grace, love, and meekness, that we shall 
be a comfort to all men, and, above all, shall 
be a comfort to God. 



[168] 



0tUtt\^tim aftettoatD 



[169] 



f // we could see beyond to-day 

As God can see; 
If all the clouds should roll away, 

The shadows flee — 
O'er present griefs we would not fret, 
Each sorrow we would soon forget, 
For many joys are waiting yet 

For you and me. 

"If we could see, if we could know, 

We often say f 
But God in love a veil doth throw 

Across our way; 
We cannot see what lies before, 
And so we cling to him the more. 
He leads v^ till this life is o'er; 

Tru^t and obey," . 



[170] 



CHAPTER THIRTEEN 




HINGS are not finished as 
we see them to-day. To- 
morrow they will appear 
larger, greater. The bud 
you see one morning in 
the garden will be a full- 
blown rose In a little while. The brown seed 
you dropped in your window-box will be a 
beautiful plant by and by. Wherever there 
is life there is growth. Every act has its 
consequences. We cannot foretellwhat results 
shall follow from any choice we may make. 
We must always take account of the after- 
ward, whatever it is we are doing, through 
whatever experiences we are passing. 
The writer of the Epistle to the Hebrews has 
a suggestive passage about chastening. He 
quotes from the Book of Proverbs : " And 
ye have forgotten the exhortation which 
speaketh unto you as unto children, My son, 
[171] 



^ m^t Wintv life 

despise not thou the chastening of the Lord, 
nor faint when thou art rebuked of him : For 
whom the Lord loveth he chasteneth, and 
scourgeth every son whom he receiveth." 
People sometimes chafe when they have 
troubles. They fret and blame God. " What 
have I done," they ask, " that God is punish- 
ing me so.f^ " But God may not be punishing 
them at all. Chastening is not punishing. 
" All chastening seemeth for the present to 
be not joyous but grievous; yet afterward it 
yieldeth peaceable fruit unto them that have 
been exercised thereby." The present is hard 
and painful, but there will be an " after- 
ward." Chastening now; afterward, peace- 
able fruit. 

The figure of pruning is used by our Master. 
He tells us that every fruitful branch of the 
vine the wise husbandman prunes — the fruit- 
ful, not the unfruitful, branch. It is a won- 
derful comfort to suffering Christians to 
know that pruning is therefore really a mark 
of approval. " Whom the Lord loveth he 
chasteneth." There is a purpose also in the 
[172[ 



pruning. It is not any reckless trimming — 
the husbandman knows what he is doing. 
Pruning seems destructive. Sometimes it ap- 
pears as if the whole vine is being cut awaj. 
But there is an afterward — that it may bear 
more fruit. 

One tells of a visit to a great hot-house, filled 
with wonderful clusters of luscious grapes. 
The owner said, " When my new gardener 
came, he said he would have nothing to do 
with these vines unless he could cut them 
clear down to the stock; and he did, and we 
had no grapes for two years. But this is the 
result.'' Stems and branches cut, bleeding, 
almost destroyed; afterward, a marvellous 
vine bending under its load of fruit. 
It is only when we learn the truth about life 
that we are able to live with faith and cour- 
age. Because they have not learned it, many 
people fall into despair in the midst of pres- 
ent disappointments and sufferings. They see 
only the hard things in their circumstances, 
and pains that make the days almost unbear- 
able, the wrongs and injustices that are 
[173] 



Ci^e WiUt life 



crushing them. They stand right in the midst 
of all the bitter trials and see no light, no 
hope, no comfort. We need to learn to stand 
away from the immediate present and get a 
view of the experience from a remoter dis- 
tance. We see only part of the experience 
while we are in its midst. 

A visitor to Amsterdam had heard about the 
wonderful chimes of St. Nicholas — so the 
story runs. He was told that he must hear 
them, whatever else he might miss in the old 
Dutch city. The tourist did not know how 
best to hear the chimes, so he went up into 
the tower of the church to get as close as he 
could to the bells. He thought he would thus 
be best able to get the full benefit of his 
visit. There he found a man with great wood- 
en gloves, like hammers, pounding on a key- 
board. All he could hear was the crash of the 
keys, the harsh clanging and the deafening 
noise of the bells above his head. He wondered 
why his friends had talked so enthusiastically 
of the chimes of St. Nicholas. To his ears 
there was no music in them, nothing but ter- 
[174] 



rible clatter and clangor. Yet at that very 
time there floated over and beyond the city 
the most entrancing music. Men in the fields 
a mile or more avray paused in their work to 
listen. People in their homes and travellers 
on the highways were thrilled by the marvel- 
lous notes that fell from the tower. The place 
to listen to chimes is not close to them, but a 
distance away, where the clangor has softened 
into sweet music. 

So it is with the experiences of life. When we 
are in their midst we hear only the jarring 
notes of pain, the bitter cries of suffering. 
" All chastening seemeth for the present to 
be not joyous but grievous." We are too 
close to it yet. But when we get farther away, 
when the sharpness of the pain is past, when 
the hardness is over and forgotten, the music 
grows sweet. Not until afterward comes with 
its comfort, its alleviation, its peaceable 
fruit, its new blessing, do we begin to under- 
stand the meaning of the discipline of the 
experience that was so hard. Afterward it 
yieldeth peaceable fruit. 
[175] 



Cl^e Wintt life 



It Is only afterward that the meaning of 
many of God's providences can be clearly 
read. Now we see through a glass darkly; 
afterward we shall see face to face. Now we 
know in part ; afterward we shall know fully. 
The things we think destructive and calami- 
tous are blessings yet in their first stage, 
fruits still green and bitter, not yet ripened 
and mellowed. 

*' Then be content, poor heart; 

God^s plans like lilies pure and white unfold. 
We must not tear the close-shut leaves apart. 

Time will reveal the calyxes of gold. 
And if, through patient toil, we reach the land 

Where tired feet, with sandals loosed, may rest, 
When we shall clearly see and understand, 

I know that we will say, ^ God knew the best,^ '' 

Life is a school. All its experiences are les- 
sons. God is educating us. School is not easy. 
All true education looks to the building of 
the finest, noblest character in the end. It is 
especially so in God's school, for he is the 
perfect Teacher. His purpose is not to give 
[ 176 ] 



us an easy time at present, but to make some- 
tliing of us afterward. Sometimes we chafe 
and fret, saying that God is harsh and severe, 
perhaps that he is even unkind. We cannot 
see that good ever can come out of the pain- 
ful disciphne. But there are Hves which only 
in the school of severity can ever reach their 
best. 

There are some plants that would die in the 
warmth of a conservatory. They must be 
kept in the cold if they would live and grow. 
One of the papers not long since told of a 
strange plant recently discovered in northern 
Siberia. It shoots up out of the ice and frozen 
ground. Its leaves grow on the side of the 
stem toward the north. Each leaf appears to 
be covered with little crystals of snow. On 
the third day the extremities of the anthers 
show minute glistening specks like diamonds. 
These are the seeds. 

Is not this plant an illustration of many 
Christian lives ? God seems to set them in beds 
of ice and snow, and yet they grow up out 
of the wintry cold into fair and wondrous 
[177] 



Ci^e Wintv life 



beauty. We should say that the lovehest hves 
of earth would be those that are reared amid 
the kindliest influences, under summer skies, 
in the warm atmosphere of ease and comfort. 
But the truth is that many of the noblest 
developments of Christian character come 
from the wintry gardens of hardship, strug- 
gle, and sorrow. Trial, therefore, is not some- 
thing meant to discourage us, to stunt and 
dwarf our life and mar its beauty. The snow 
plant would die in a tropical garden. There 
are lives that never could become Christlike 
and never could reach heaven without the 
discipline of hardness. No hardness is too 
severe which teaches us to live worthily. " To 
serve God and love him," says some one, " is 
higher and better than happiness, though it 
be with wounded feet, bleeding hands, and 
heart loaded with sorrow." 

^^ So much we miss 
If love is weak; so much we gain 
If love is strong. God thinks no pain 
Too sharp or lasting to ordain 
To teach us this.^^ 
[178] 



We must guard against the dreading of the 
cost of Hfe's best things. If we cannot pay 
the price we cannot get the blessings. We 
must have the sharp, biting winter if we 
would get, by and by, the genial spring with 
its bursting blossoms. We must have the 
ploughshare cutting through the ground if 
we would have the harvest of golden grain. 
There is no trial in our lives that does not 
come to us as the bearer of good. We meet 
a grievous loss when we are not profited by 
the hard or painful experience that comes to 
us. We cannot see this to-day. It seems to us 
in the keenness of our sorrow that nothing 
which may come in any afterward will make 
up for what we are now suffering. But if not 
in this life, then somewhere in the great eter- 
nal afterward we shall be able to say : " Now 
I understand." " All chastening seemeth for 
the present grievous ; yet afterward it yield- 
eth peaceable fruit." 

Remember Joseph. He was cruelly wronged 

by his brothers, torn away from his home, 

sold as a slave, maligned and cast into chains 

[179] 



W^t Wihtt life 



— a dark beginning, surely, for a young 
man's life. Yet afterward came honor, power, 
glory. It takes time to work out God's best 
things. There is a story of a rabbi who met a 
child carrying a basket closely covered. 
" Tell me, little maid," said the rabbi, " what 
you have in that basket." The child an- 
swered, " If my mother had wished that any 
one should know what is in this basket, she 
would not have covered it up." If God had 
meant us to know all his plans of love for us, 
he would not have covered them up under 
experiences of pain and suffering. We may 
be sure, however, that for all our times of 
chastening and trial there is an afterward, 
full of glorious good, waiting for us. 
We miss a great deal by living so entirely in 
the present and not having ourselves to think 
of the afterward. We are alarmed when we 
find ourselves in hard conditions and circum- 
stances, forgetting altogether that these are 
only processes through which we must pass 
to reach fineness of character, sweetness of 
spirit, strength, courage, discipline, and all 
[180] 



the qualities which go to make up the best 
hfe. We are too short-sighted when we are 
in trouble. We see only the suffering, the 
loss, the struggle, and think not of the mis- 
sion of the trouble and what is coming out of 
it. We should widen our vision so as to take 
in the afterward as well as the present 
hour. 

Life is all one piece. One experience follows 
another. God always loves us — loves us just 
as surely and as tenderly, when all things 
seem to be against us as he does when all 
things seem to be favoring us. When trouble 
comes, no matter what its direct and natural 
cause. It has a mission — it comes to make us 
better, to cure us of some fault, to cleanse us 
of some blot, to make us gentler, to teach us 
to be trustful and strong, to make us more 
thoughtful and more helpful. Instead of vex- 
ing and fretting ourselves with the question 
how God can truly love us and yet allow us 
to suffer, to endure loss, to be treated un- 
justly and wrongfully, we would better 
change our attitude altogether toward our 
[181] 



Ci^e 3^itier Life 



trials and ask rather what errand this pain 
or affliction has for us, what it should teach 
us, what change it should work in us. 
There is no trial in our lives that does not 
come to us as the bearer of a blessing. We 
meet a grievous loss when we are not profited 
by any hard or painful experience that comes 
to us. The other morning one told of an 
unhappiness which came from the loss of a 
friend — ^not by death, but by the friend's 
unfaithfulness. Well, it is hard when one has 
to lose out of one's life such a friend, who 
for years has seemed to be true and whose 
friendship has come to mean so much of 
strength, of companionship, of joy; but 
there will be an afterward, and we may be 
sure that when the afterward has opened its 
treasures into the lonely life, it will be seen 
that God is good and loving in just what he 
did. You do not know what poison was hidden 
in the cup you thought was filled to the brim 
with happiness. God took it out of your hand 
to save you from a deeper, bitterer sorrow 
than that which you are now enduring. 
[182] 



You cannot see this to-day. It seems to you in 
the keenness of your sorrow that nothing that 
may come in afterward will make up for what 
3^ou have lost. But trust God with that. The 
future is long. It stretches away into the 
eternal years. If not in this life, then some- 
where in the great eternal Afterward you 
will be able to say : " Now I understand." 

*' When the last day is ended, 
And the nights are through; 
When the last sun is buried 
In its grave of blue; 

" When the stars are snuffed like candles, 
And the seas no longer fret. 
When the winds unlearn their cunning, 
And the storms forget; 

^' When the last lip is palsied, 
And the last prayer said, 
Love shall reign immortal 
While the worlds lie dead ! *^ 



[183] 



Ci^e ^ci^ool of Life 



[185] 



VI do not ask for place among 
Great thinkers who have taught and mng, 

And scorned to bend 
Under the trifles of the hour — 
/ only would not lose the power 

To comprehend,'^ 

These lessons thou dost give 
To teach me how to live, 

To do, to bear, 

To get, to share, 

To work and play, 

And trv^t alway, 

— Maltie D. Babcock. 



[186] 



CHAPTER FOURTEEN 

Ci^e ^cl^ool of life 




HE business of life is 
learning. We know noth- 
ing when we begin. On 
the tomb of an English 
historian is the inscrip- 
tion, " He died learning." 
Learning is not confined to what we get from 
reading books. All life is a school and books 
are ever being put into our hands, and les- 
sons are set for us continually. 
St. Paul tells us of one of the lessons he had 
learned in the school of experience. " I have 
learned," he said, " in whatsoever state I am, 
therein to be content." We are glad to know 
that St. Paul had to learn to be contented. 
We are apt to get the impression that such 
a man as he was did not have to learn to live 
as common people do, that he always knew, 
for instance, how to be contented. Here, how- 
ever, we have the confession that he had to 
[187] 



Cl^e WiUt life 



learn the lesson just as we do. He did not 
always know the secret. Then he was well on 
in years when he said this, from which we 
conclude that it took him a good while to 
learn the lesson, and that it was not easy for 
him to do it. 

There is a remarkable word in the Hebrews 
which tells us that even Jesus learned his 
lessons as we must do — he learned obedience 
by the things which he suffered. It was not 
always easy for him to do the Father's will. 
Even in Gethsemane we see him learning. 
Each time he prayed that the cup might pass 
the pleading was a little less intense and it 
was growing easier for him to submit. The 
fact of the truth and reality of his humanity 
shows us that even Christ, the Son of God, 
had to learn the lessons of life just as his 
followers must do. He learned to be content 
in whatsoever state he was. He learned to be 
patient, to suffer injustice and wrong, to en- 
dure insults and not resent them. He learned 
to give up, to accept unkindness quietly and 
return kindness instead. 
[188] 



Ci^e ^ci^ool of life 



We are all in Christ's school. Disciples are 
scholars and we are all disciples. We enter the 
lowest grade when we begin to be Christians. 
We have everything to learn. Each new ex- 
perience is a new lesson set for us by the 
great Teacher. There will come to you to- 
morrow a sharp temptation. You wonder why 
God permits it if he loves you. Why does he 
let you be assailed and put to the test? He 
certainly does not want you to fail. Satan's 
purpose in bringing temptation upon us is 
to entice us to sin, to disobey Christ and 
prove disloyal to him; but that is not God's 
thought in permitting us to be tempted. He 
means the temptation to prove us and then 
to strengthen us and fit us for braver, better 
life. 

It seems strange to us that Jesus had to be 
tempted, he of the pure soul and the sinless 
life. But we know that a large element in his 
helpfulness as our Saviour and Friend comes 
from his own experience of temptation. We 
know that he is able to help us, and deliver us 
in our temptations because he was tempted 
[189] 



Cl^e Wihtt Uft 



and was victorious. If he had been defeated 
he could not have helped us. He is able also to 
sympathize with us in our struggles because 
he endured the same. In like manner tempta- 
tion met and overcome makes our lives mean 
more to others. One who by God's grace has 
kept himself unspotted from the world be- 
comes thus a comfort and a strength to many 
others. One writes: 

^'Sometimes the world seems black with shade 
and dole — 
The grimy haunt of sin-smirched evil men; 
Then shines the unstained whiteness of your 
soul, 
And all the earth is clean and fair again.' ^ 

One brave and valiant soul that is not 
smirched by the world's evil and does not fail 
in the testing becomes indeed a strength to 
many others. He has not failed and we need 
not fail. For others' sake, as well as for our 
own, we should stand firm and true in every 
experience of testing. If we falter and fail, 
others are made less strong to endure. One 
[190] 



Ci^e ^cl^ool of JLife 



courageous man who never turns back to the 
foe puts courage into others and they grow 
strong, too. But one faint heart puts fear 
and dismay into many other hearts. Remem- 
bering that others will do what we do, be 
brave and victorious, or craven and defeated, 
should be in us a mighty motive to stand. 
Then we need not fail. We may win in the 
battle. " There hath no temptation taken you 
but such as man can bear." Each temptation 
is a lesson set for us by the Master, and the 
lesson is never too hard to learn with his 
help. 

Sorrow is also a lesson in Christ's school. It 
is not an accident breaking into our life with- 
out meaning or purpose. God could prevent 
the coming of the sorrow if he desired. He 
has all power, and nothing can touch the 
life of any of his children unless he is willing. 
Since we know that God loves us and yet per- 
mits us to sufFer, we may be quite sure that 
there is a blessing, something good, in what- 
ever it is that brings us pain or grief. We 
have this in the Master's Beatitude, " Blessed 
[191] 



m^t wmt life 



are they that mourn : for they shall be com- 
forted." The child of a patriotic soldier had 
been listening to his father as he told of a 
great battle in which he had been engaged. 
As the soldier spoke of the terrific struggle 
the boy said, " I would have run." The father 
replied, " Ah, there are some things, my son, 
dearer than life." The cause of country w^as 
dearer to the soldier. We shrink from pain. 
We would run away from grief. We would 
refuse to accept sorrow. But there are things 
worth suffering for, things dearer than ease 
and pleasure. We learn lessons in pain which 
repay a thousand times the cost of our tears. 
Suffering is hard, grief is bitter. 
To some people it seems almost cruel in Jesus 
Christ to say, " Blessed are they that 
mourn." How could he say it, they ask, if 
his heart is tender and loving as we claim 
it is? How can God permit such suffering 
and woe, so much grief and sorrow, as we see 
everywhere, if he is a God of love and of com- 
passion as he says he is.^ 
" If I were God," said one, " I would take 
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Ci^e ^ci^ool of life 



away all pain, all grief, all suffering from 
the world." That is just what God is doing 
through the gospel of his grace and love. 
" He will wipe away every tear from their 
eyes." But we must not forget what it costs 
to do this. Jesus wept that our tears may be 
dried. 

" It seems to me," said another, " that if 
God is the compassionate being the Bible says 
he is, his heart would break as he looks 
down upon the world and beholds the pain 
and anguish, the injustice and wrong, which 
are everywhere." The answer is, " His heart 
did break." That is the meaning of the cross. 
From God's own sorrow comes blessing for 
the world and comfort for all sorrow. 
Jesus does not say that mourning itself is 
blessed, is good or pleasant or beautiful. 
What he says is that the comfort of God is 
blessed, that those who mourn and receive 
comfort are so enriched, their lives so en- 
larged, so lifted up into the blessing of God's 
love, that they can rejoice even in their tears. 
A young man who for fourteen years has 
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had a great sorrow in his home — his wife be- 
ing an incurable sufferer — speaks of the hard 
years bravely and joyfully, without a word 
or a tone of bitterness, testifying that he 
owes to the burden and sorrow of these years 
all that is worthy and beautiful in his life. 
Whatever he is as a man, especially as a 
Christian man, is the fruit of what he has 
suffered. He can say that he has learned to 
rejoice in his pain and trial. He accepted the 
lesson set for him and has learned it. 
An ingenious photographer has been photo- 
graphing the heart of a dried teardrop, 
under a microscope, revealing in it myriads 
of forms of beauty. The Bible tells us that 
God preserves the tears of his children, put- 
ting them in his tear-bottle. Tears are sacred 
to God, because of the blessings that come 
through them to those who love God. In 
heaven those who look back on lives of pain 
and sorrow on the earth will find that their 
best lessons have come through tears. 
All the Christian graces have to be learned 
in Christ's school. There St. Paul had learned 
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contentment. He never would have learned it, 
however, if he had had only bounty and ease 
all the while. Contentment comes from learn- 
ing to do without things we once supposed 
to be essential to our comfort. St. Paul had 
learned contentment through finding such 
fulness of blessing in Christ that he did not 
need any more the secondary things. Perhaps 
we would succeed better in learning this same 
grace if we had fewer of life's comforts, if 
sometimes we had experience of want. The 
continuity of blessings that flow like a river 
into our lives gives us no opportunity to 
learn contentment. We think we are very 
happy and grateful for our favors ; but how 
would we behave if instead of the unbroken 
supply of pleasant things, we were to suffer 
without them for a few days ; if for our 
splendid health we fell sick for a while ; if for 
the happy circle of love and the sweetness of 
unfailing joy, sorrow came and we were 
bereft and lonely? Perhaps it is well that we 
have some dark days, that we may learn to 
appreciate the blue sky. There are beautiful 
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Ci^e Wiuv life 



things In the darkness which we never would 
see if there were no break In the sunshine. 
When sufferings come into our Hfe, disagree- 
able things, hunger, want, instead of plenty, 
rough ways Instead of flower-strewn paths, 
God is teaching us the lesson of contentment 
so that we can say at length that we have 
learned it. 

Patience Is another lesson set for us in life's 
school. Many of us are impatient with others. 
We are impatient with their slowness in learn- 
ing. An English head-master used to tell how 
once he sharply reproved a pupil for dulness 
when he failed to know his lesson. The boy 
looked up into the teacher's face and said, 
conscious of the injustice he was enduring: 
"Why do you speak so severely to me? In- 
deed, sir, I am doing the very best I can." 
The teacher used to tell years afterward how 
he always had regretted his loss of patience 
with that boy. Great wrong is often done a 
child by impatience in reproving him. We 
should remember that it was an outbreak of 
Impatience that kept Moses out of the prom- 
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Ci^e ^cl^ool of Uit 



ised land. We do not know how often impa- 
tience limits our usefulness. 
Impatience is often shown in hasty temper. 
Ruskin in a letter to girls has this good ad- 
vice : " Keep sweetly calm of temper under all 
circumstances, recognizing the thing that is 
provoking or disagreeable to you as coming 
directly from Christ's hand. And the more it 
is like to provoke you thank him for it the 
more, as a young soldier would thank his 
general for trusting him with a hard place to 
hold on the rampart." We should always re- 
member that when we are disposed to become 
vexed, to fly into a passion, to speak harshly 
or pettishly, a lesson has been set for us — 
we are to learn to keep sweet, to endure 
patiently. The fact that we are inclined to be- 
come impatient shows that we have not yet 
fully learned our lesson, and therefore it is 
set for us again. 

Lessons are also set for us when we are sick. 
The doctor sends you to your room and bids 
you to be quiet for a season. This means a 
good deal more than merely being sick. Your 
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sickness has some mission for you. If your 
minister or your friends pray for you, there 
are two requests they should make. One is, 
that you may recover in God's good time, but 
the still more important prayer is that the 
mission of the sickness may not fail, that you 
may come from your sick-room in due time 
with a new blessing in your life. When you 
are sick, you should ask God what the mis- 
sion of your illness is to you and then ask 
him to teach you the lesson set for you. It 
is not accidental. Nor does it come purpose- 
less. It would be a sad thing if you should 
get over your fever and miss the lesson which 
the fever was sent to teach you, or the good 
it came to work in you. 

It gives life a new sacredness to think of it 
thus as a school, the school of Christ. The 
Master is always saying to us, " Come unto 
me, and learn of me." Are we learning.^ Some 
men set for themselves the rule to learn some 
new fact every day. Goethe says we ought 
every day to see at least one fine work of art, 
to hear one sweet strain of music, to read 
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Cl^e ^cl^ool of life 



one beautiful poem. Are we learning some- 
thing new in Christ's school each day? Are / 
we adding a line of beauty every day to our / 
character? / 



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Worn of titt 



[201] 



V Wisdom with its trumpet word 
In a myriad volumes heard; 
All which unto love belongs 
Chanted in uncounted songs^ 
Up and down the endless ages; 
Things divine in sacred pages — 
As the sands of the seashore — 
Taught with tongues of gold of yore;- 
When to-morrow is to-day, 
What can still remain to say 9 
One thing looked for — one unheard, 
Only that unuttered word, 
Echoes of the sense of which 
All our spoken words enrich, 
And shall yet, with clarion call, 
Alter and transmute them alV^ 



[202] 



CHAPTER FIFTEEN 

^otti^ Of life 




HE words of Christ are not 
like other men's words. He 
says they are spirit and 
life. In one of his parables 
he speaks of his words as 
seeds. We know what seeds 
are. You may have in your hand a handful 
of gems — pearls, diamonds, or other pre- 
cious stones. They are brilliant and beauti- 
ful. They are rare and of great value. You 
hold a fortune in your hand. But these are 
only little stones. They have no life in them. 
You may plant them in your garden, but 
they will not grow, and you will not gather 
any harvest from them. 

Then you may take up a handful of seeds — 
flower-seeds, grain-seeds, seeds of trees. They 
have no brightness, do not shine, cannot be 
sold for ornaments. But they have secrets of 
life in them. Scatter them in your garden, 
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C]^e Wihtt tift 



drop them in your window-box, or plant 
them in the fields, and they will grow. 
Christ's words are seeds. They are different 
from other men's sayings. These may be elo- 
quent, brilliant, wise, sparkling with beauty 
— gems of literature, but they have no life 
in them. They do not make the world any 
better. But the words of Christ are life. Plant 
them and you will have regenerated lives, 
sweet homes, grace and beauty in char- 
acter. 

It is related that when Thorwaldsen carried 
back from Italy the wonderful pieces of stat- 
uary which he had carved in that sunny land, 
the stones were wrapped in straw. They were 
unwrapped in the artist's garden, and the 
straw was scattered all about the place. Next 
summer, when the warm rains came, there 
grew up everywhere countless multitudes of 
flowers that never had grown there before. 
The seeds had been in the straw that was 
wrapped about the pieces of marble, and now 
in far-north Denmark, Italian flowers grew 
in great profusion and beauty. 
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Wotn^ of life 



The Bible is the word of God. It comes to us 
from heaven. It bears in itself heavenly seeds, 
seeds of the plants and trees that grow in the 
heavenly fields and gardens. Then, wherever 
the Bible is read it scatters these holy seeds, 
and soon the heavenly flowers and fruits are 
found growing on earthly soil. No other book 
has such power to transform and beautify 
lives as has the Bible. You may study the 
best literature, the finest poetry, the noblest 
philosophy ; it will make you intelligent, cul- 
tured, learned, but it does not make you 
good ; it does not put into your heart heaven- 
ly qualities ; it does not make you loving, un- 
selfish, kind, gentle; it does not send you 
forth to minister to others in need. But those 
who study the word of God daily, continu- 
ously, reverently, prayerfully, and meditate 
on its teachings, are transformed in charac- 
ter. The words that Jesus spoke are spirit 
and are life. 

One of the Psalms gives us a wonderful pic- 
ture of the effects wrought by the word of 
God. It finds the soul marred, stained, hurt, 
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m^t wmv life 



and restores It unto the beauty of God. It 
makes the simple wise. It puts joy into the 
heart. It enHghtehs the eyes. It Is more pre- 
cious than finest gold. It Is sweeter than 
the droppings of the honeycomb. It warns 
against dangers. There Is great reward In 
obeying It. 

The Bible Is the most wonderful of all books. 
All we know about God we learn from It. Yet 
some people seem almost ashamed to confess 
that they read this great book at all, as If it 
were an Indication of weakness of mind. They 
are not ashamed to be caught reading Shake- 
speare, or Tennyson, or Bacon, or even an 
off -color novel. But they do not like any one 
to see them with a Bible in their hands. They 
want to be considered wise in science, along 
intellectual lines. In literature. In the wisdom 
of this world. It never occurs to them that 
the Bible Is able to make them wise as no 
other book or books ever written can do. 
There really Is no otjier book in the world 
that contains so much profound wisdom. It 
tells us about God. It pictures the whole 
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^orDjS of Uit 



truth about men. It holds for us the key 
to all mystery. It tells us how to live and 
how to die. 

The words of life rejoice the heart. There is 
a legend of the discovery of a strange harp 
amid some Egyptian ruins. It was ancient 
and remarkable, but there was no music in 
it. As we study the Bible we have in our 
hands a harp which at once begins to give 
out the sweetest songs. This is a sad world. 
It has many sorrows. Life is full of mysteries 
and perplexities. Science, philosophy, poetry, 
art, have no secret of joy for us, can tell us 
of no way to be glad and happy. But the 
words of the Lord rejoice the heart. There 
is no grief for which the Bible does not have 
a comfort. There is no sorrow which it can- 
not turn into joy. 

The words of life give comfort. A book with 
no comfort for those in trouble would not 
meet the needs of the great mass of men and 
women. You may not need consolation just 
to-day, and you may almost grow impatient 
when in reading the Bible you come upon 
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m)t Wi^tt Life 



word after word meant to give cheer and up- 
lifting. " This means nothing to me," you 
say. " I have no need of comfort." But per- 
haps the heart of the person next to you is 
crying out for some consoHng word and 
would be bitterly disappointed if the holy 
book had only ethical precepts, lessons of 
duty, and urgent exhortations, with no 
words of tenderness, nothing to soothe grief. 
If the Bible were not a book of comfort it 
would not be loved as it is. A noted preacher, 
in reviewing his long pastorate, said that if 
he were beginning again his pastoral work, 
there were several things he would do which 
he had not done. One of these was that he 
would preach more comfortingly. A great 
many preachers, when they look back from 
the end of their ministry, seeing all things 
then in the light of eternity, will regret that 
they did not preach more comfortingly. 
One of the most pathetic things one sees in 
going about among sorrowing ones is, how 
many people shut their eyes to the light and 
joy which the Bible offers tc^them, and their 
[208] 



Worn ot tiit 



ears to the glorious and blessed consolations 
which are spoken to them. One writes : 

" That little sunbeanij which so softly came 

And crept in through the shutters of your 
room, 
To-day, in letters beautiful, these words 
With golden pencil traced upon the gloom: 

''' You think me beautiful, and fondly love 

My little light. Why, then, throw open wide 
Those gloomy shutters, for a great bright 
World of sunshine lingers just outside.^ 

^^ That little joy that stole unconsciously 
Into your weary soul and thrilled anew 
Your flagging energies one transient moment. 
Said, ^ There is a whole long life like this for 
youJ^^ 

There is a great skyful of light that waits 
to flood our hearts, and we shut it all out but 
a few half-dimmed rays that steal in through 
a broken pane. There is an infinitude of com- 
fort that longs to come to us to fill our life, 
and we receive only a word or two of it, keep- 
[ 209 ] 



Cl^e Wititv JLffe 



ing our great world of sorrow unconsoled. 
Why should we so rob ourselves when God 
longs to give us such measurelessness of com- 
fort? He does not want us to go grieving 
through this world when there is such bound- 
less consolation waiting at our doors. 
The words of life build up character. The 
great business of life is to grow into the 
beauty of Christ and to learn to do the will 
of God. In this, nothing but the divine words 
will avail. St. Paul exhorts us to let the word 
of Christ dwell in us richly. We are to let it 
dwell — so then we can hinder it from abiding 
with us, we can shut it out from our lives, 
if we will. We can shut it out ; we must open 
the doors willingly, if it is to be admitted. 
Then it is to dwell in us. To dwell is to stay. 
It is not enough to let it come into our hearts 
for a moment, and then go out, like a bird 
that flees in at your window, sings a snatch 
of song and then flies away again. The divine 
word must make its home with us, in us. 
All the Bible is valuable, has its place in 
fashioning our character and making our 
[ 210 ] 



^ortJ0 of life 



life. St. Paul says that every Scripture in- 
spired of God is profitable. God never in- 
spired a word that will not be profitable in 
its place and at its time. Every inspired 
Scripture is profitable for teaching, for re- 
proof, for correction, for instruction in right 
living. Some people think there are certain 
portions of the Scriptures which cannot be 
of any profit. Of course there are degrees 
of value in different portions. We would not 
say that a chapter of hard names in Chron- 
icles is as spiritually profitable as a chapter 
in one of the Gospels. Yet a good old woman 
used to stumble over the hard genealogical 
lists she came upon, trying to pronounce 
them and then to remember them. She said 
she would be dreadfully ashamed to meet 
these people in heaven and not know their 
names. 

Some one gives this incident. In a Christian 
home, not long since, the mother asked her 
son, a young man, a church member, where 
his Bible was. He replied, with some confu- 
sion : " I don't know, mother. I guess it is 
[211] 



m^t Winn Uft 



in my trunk up in the store-room." Turn- 
ing to her daughter the mother asked: 
" Where is your Bible, Mary? " The girl re- 
plied : " I am not sure, mother. I think it is 
upstairs in one of my bureau drawers." Of 
what use were these Bibles in the lives of 
those who possessed them.? Does any one live 
better because he has a Bible in the store- 
room, or upstairs in the bureau drawer.? 
The old Testament tells a story of a lost 
Bible. It had been lost for a good while — 
lost, too, in the temple. Things were going 
sadly wrong in those days, and the book got 
lost. They were repairing the temple, how- 
ever, and one day somebody came upon the 
lost book. The king and the priests began 
to read it, and, strange to say, began to weep. 
They found that they had been sinning 
greatly because they had not been reading 
the book to learn what God's will for them 
was. So they repented and began again to 
read the holy words and to do the things 
they were commanded to do, and there was 
a revival. Would it not be a blessed thing 
[212] 



WoW of life 



if we would all search our store-rooms, 
trunks, book-cases, and bureau drawers and 
find every lost Bible and begin to read what 
God says to his children? 
The words of Christ living in us will start 
songs. Those who have the gift of song are 
wondrously dowered. Not all of us, however, 
can sing to the pleasure and edification of 
others. But we may all make our lives songs. 
St. Paul dwells much on joy as an invariable 
quality of the Christian life. The word of 
Christ living in a man puts psalms and 
hymns into his lips and life. The life of 
Christ was the ideal life. He never failed in 
any way. He never got discouraged. He was 
never impatient. He never complained or 
murmured. He never fretted or worried. He 
never was disagreeable, however much people 
annoyed him. He never showed hurt feeling. 
He was never afraid, never yielded to temp- 
tation. 



[213] 



ptmntin^ ^m pnftct 



[215] 



i^Let me to-day do something that shall take 
A little sadness from the world's vast store, 
And may I be so favored as to make 
Of joy's too scanty sum a little more. 

VLet me not hurt, by any selfish deed 

Or thoughtless word, the heart of foe or friend, 
Nor would I pass, unseeing, worthy need, 
Or sin by silence where I should defend. 

^'However meagre is my worldly wealth. 

Let me give something that shall aid my kind, 
A word of courage or a thought of health, 

Dropped as I pass for troubled hearts to find.'' 



[216] 



CHAPTER SIXTEEN 



pmtntin^ 0pen ptttttt 




E are each others' keeper in 
a more serious sense than 
we think. When a new 
friend is given to us we 
come under very sacred 
obligation to do him good, 
not evil, to guard his interests, to seek to 
be a blessing to him in every way. St. Paul 
said his aim was to present every man per- 
fect in Christ. He was looking on to the end 
of his ministry. He saw in every person he 
met or knew one for whom he must give 
account, whom he must bring to Christ at 
last in spotless beauty. Every Christian must 
likewise present spotless and perfect before 
Christ those who are committed to his keep- 
ing. 

We are responsible for our failures in duty 

to each other. A man rushed into his pastor's 

study one morning, in great distress, and 

[217] 



m^t wintv utt 



said, " Oh, sir, my daughter is dead, and she 
must tell God that she never heard a prayer 
in her father's house." He was startled to re- 
member that he had done nothing to prepare 
his own child for appearing before God. Are 
there not many persons who fail in this duty ? 
The same responsibility rests on each one of 
us in his own measure regarding every life 
that comes within our reach or influence, in 
his own home and without. 
St. Paul wished to see certain persons in 
Rome, that he might impart unto them some 
spiritual gift. He also exhorts us to speak 
to others in our conversation only words 
that will minister grace to them, start in 
their minds and hearts thoughts of good, of 
purity, of love, inspiring them to better 
things. Even amid the idle, playful talk of 
our lighter conversation, we should say some 
earnest word that may be remembered, and 
that may do good. All our influence upon 
others, upon every other person whom our 
life touches, should be such as will put upon 
them touches of beauty and help in some way 
[218] 



pvmntin^ 0^en ptttttt 

to fit them for coming at last perfect into 
God's presence. 

Perfection must be thought of in two phases 
— negative and positive. It should be ' un- 
spotted, without blemish, but it must also fill 
up the measure of its capacity. We are not to 
be unkind, but we are also to be kind. It is 
not enough to wash a bulb and to make it 
clean ; the bulb must also be developed, until 
its hidden beauty is brought out. Perfection 
is not merely making a life white ; it means 
also the bringing out of all the life's powers 
and capacities until they reach their best. 
The one-talented man in the parable brought 
back his talent perfect — unwasted, full- 
weight, bright and shining, but he was con- 
demned as wicked and slothful, because he 
had kept it hidden and had not used it. The 
capacity was not squandered, not a particle 
of it, but it had gained nothing. The men 
who were commended that day were those 
who had traded with their talents, making 
the two become four, and the five multiply to 
ten. 

[219] 



Ci^e Wiut JLtfe 



We do not know how many strings there are 
in our harp that have never yet given out a 
musical note or a bar of song, which might 
be made to give forth most sweet and inspir- 
ing melody. There is a story of Ole Bull, the 
great violinist, and John Ericsson, the in- 
ventor. They were old friends, but the musi- 
cian could not get the inventor to listen to 
his violin. All he thought about was machines. 
He had no time for music. He did not know 
there was any music in his soul. Ole Bull 
then prepared a little ruse, and one day took 
his violin to Ericsson, asking him to mend it 
— something had gone wrong with it, he said. 
Then, to test it, after the mending, Ole Bull 
drew the bow lightly over the strings, and 
soon the most marvellous notes filled the 
office. Ericsson sat amazed, entranced, and 
begged the musician to play on. " I never 
knew before that I cared for music,'^ he said. 
It was the discovery of a power and faculty 
in his soul which, until now, had been sleep- 
ing. 

We do not dream what capacities of ours are 
[220] 



ptmntin^ ^tn ptvttct 

lying undeveloped, useless, unawaked, like 
music in a sleeping harp. It is said that there 
are millions of dollars in this country hoarded 
up, hidden in chinks of walls, wrapped in 
bags, secreted in cellars, or buried in old ket- 
tles, not doing any good, not increasing by 
being traded with. Think, too, of the gifts, 
talents, and powers of Hfe, lying hidden in 
people's brains, hands, tongues, and hearts, 
not being used in any way to enrich the 
world, to add to its beauty, to give joy and 
comfort. Think of yourself, of the splendid 
capacities in you, which are not being devel- 
oped. You are responsible not merely for be- 
ing a respectable sort of person; you are 
called and required to be perfect, to have all 
your gifts and capacities developed to their 
best and highest degree. 

St. Paul thought much of this matter of re- 
sponsibility for others. When we begin to 
understand what life means, we see that we 
have a responsibility for helping to make 
every one perfect in Christ. That is the cen- 
tral meaning of the lesson of missions. Jesus, 
[221] 



Ci^e mntv Life 



before he went away, bade his followers to 
go and make disciples of all the nations. We 
have a duty to every human being under 
heaven. We are to love him and do every- 
thing we can to bring him to Christ. If we 
find our neighbor fallen by the wayside, hurt, 
we are to stop, no matter how busy we are, 
how hurried, nor how many other duties we 
have in hand, and relieve him. If he is hun- 
gry, we are to feed him. If he is thirsty, we 
are to give him drink. If we come upon him 
sick and do not minister unto him, if he 
comes to our door as a stranger, and we turn 
him away, we have failed in our duty of love 
to him. 

But our responsibility does not end with our 
ministries to men's physical needs. We are 
our brother's keeper in every sense. We are 
to seek to make every man perfect in his life 
and character. We are never to do anything 
to hurt another, taking this also in its broad- 
est sense, referring to bodily injury, to the 
marring of the mind, or to spiritual harm. 
A careless nurse seventy years ago let the 
[222] 



baby fall, and for all the years since a man 
with a crippled body has been going about 
the streets, a mere wreck of what he might 
have been. From an incompetent and inexperi- 
enced teacher a number of years since a boy 
received defective and false teaching, and his 
career has been spoiled, his usefulness dimin- 
ished, his standing among his fellows hurt. 
Those who know him best say that the warp- 
ing and hurting of his life by his teacher 
are responsible in a large measure for his 
failure. 

Some fifteen or twenty years since a beautiful 
girl, who had been brought up in a Christian 
home, had given herself to Christ and was 
beginning a consecrated Christian life, fell 
under the influence, for a single summer, of 
a relative who called himself an agnostic. She 
was in this man's home and listened to his 
insinuating words. He laughed at her moth- 
er's teachings about God, Jesus Christ, the 
Bible, and prayer. He professed to pity the 
girl's delusions, and spoke to her in a scep- 
tical way until her mind became filled with 
[22S] 



Ci^e Wi^tt life 



doubts and questions. When she returned to 
her home, at the end of the summer, her child- 
hood's simple faiths had become full of doubts 
and questions. Was there really any one to 
hear her when she prayed? Was there a 
Father anywhere who cared for her or would 
help her? Was the Bible really the word of 
God? Her old simple trust was gone, her 
peace and joy were gone. 

These are illustrations of the ways in which 
lives are continually hurt by others, in body, 
in mind, in spirit. Instead of harming others 
in anj way, it is our duty to seek in all ways 
the highest good of every other. Jesus speaks 
of the causing of one of his little ones to 
stumble as the worst of crimes. This puts a 
great burden of responsibility upon mothers 
and fathers to whose hands God intrusts lit- 
tle children to be sheltered and guarded, to 
be trained and taught, to be influenced and 
brought up. Suppose they mar their lives and 
teach them mistaken things about the mean- 
ing of life ! Think of the sin of him who leaves 
a blot on a fair young life. Think of the crime 
[224] 



ptmntin^ 0pen pttittt 

of him who becomes a tempter of innocence, 
who leaves ruin in the temple of an immortal 
soul! 

We sometimes try to evade our responsibility 
for this guarding and training of others' 
lives. We say this is Christ's work, not ours. 
It is Christ's — he only can keep any one from 
injury, from hurtful things in the world. 
But we are coworkers with Christ. He uses 
our hands, our hearts, and our words in put- 
ting upon other lives the touches of immortal 
beauty that he would have them wear. We 
may not leave Christ out in anyt^iing we 
would do for any other. " We might just as 
well leave out the sun in the making of a gar- 
den as leave out Christ in the making of a 
life." Education, moral influences, refinement, 
ethical teachings, all are pitifully inadequate 
alone. There must be the impact of divine 
grace and love upon our lives in and through 
whatever any human touch and influence may 
do. " What the sun is to the rose-bush," said 
the poet, " Jesus Christ is to my life." 
Yet the fact that Christ himself is the real 
[225] 



m^t WiUv Uit 



power in all the keeping and perfecting of 
lives is only half the truth. He v/orks through 
the mother, the teacher, the friend. Some one 
was trying to impress a boy with the fact 
that God gave him all his blessings and did 
for him all the good things that meant so 
much to his life. The boy answered hesitat- 
ingly and thoughtfully, " Yes, but mothers 
help a lot." He was right — mothers help a 
lot. God largely does his work for the boys 
through mothers. They are his coworkers. 
All who love Christ are called to be his help- 
ers. The work is Christ's, but the responsibil- 
ity is ours. Our hands must do the duty. Our 
lips must speak the word. We are our broth- 
er's keeper, though only Christ can really 
keep him. Ours must be the watching, the 
praying, the counsel. 

One of the common mistakes in Christian life 
is in putting upon God responsibility which 
belongs to us. Many persons fail to realize 
the truth of the necessary cooperation of the 
human with the divine. Christ made the re- 
demption — no human power could have done 
[226] 



this — and then sent out his disciples to preach 
the gospel to every creature. Many good peo- 
ple are deeply and compassionately interested 
in the saving and helping of others, but fail 
to understand that they have anything them- 
selves to do in the matter. So they take it to 
God in prayer, asking him to bring back this 
wandering one, to incline this careless one to 
thoughtfulness, to interest this indolent one 
in Christian service, to keep this heedless one 
from stumbling. It is right to pray, but if we 
do nothing else the prayer will not avail. Only 
God can do the things we long to have done, 
yet not God alone — God and we. 

" The Lord Christ wanted a tongue one day 
To speak a message of cheer 
To a heart that was weary and worn and 
sad, 
And weighed with a mighty fear. 
He asked me for mine, hut Hwas busy quite 
With my own affairs from morn till night, 

" The Lord Christ wanted a hand one day 
To do a loving deed; 

[ 227 ] 



Ci^e Wintv life 



He wanted two feet, on an errand for him 

To run with gladsome speed. 
But I had need of my own that day; 
To his gentle beseeching I answered, ' Nay I ' 

^^ So all that day I used my tongue, 
My hands, and my feet as I chose; 
I said some hasty, bitter words 

That hurt one heart, God knows. 
I busied my hands with worthless play. 
And my wilful feet went a crooked way. 

^^ And the dear Lord Christ — was his work un- 
done 
For lack of a willing heart f 
Only through men does he speak to men ? 

Dumb must he be apart ? 
I do not know, but I wish to-day 
I had let the Lord Christ have his way.^' 



[228] 



ajs 91 l^ate loi3eD pou 



[229] 



"/n the long run all love is paid by love; 

Though undervalued by the hosts of earth. 
The great eternal government above 

Keeps strict account, and will redeem its worth. 
Give thy love freely; do not count its cost; 
So beautiful a thing was never lost, 
In the long run.'^ 

*' The man who wins is the man who stays 
In the unsought paths and the rocky ways, 
And, perhaps, who lingers, now and then, 
To help some failure to rise again. 
Ah, he is the man who wins I ^' 



[230] 



CHAPTER SEVENTEEN 



m 91 ^ate loteti ^ou 



R^wV^l 


1 



ESUS called Ms command- 
ment of love a new com- 
mandment. Why new ? 
There was an old com- 
mandment which ran, 
''Thou shalt love thy 
neighbor as thyself." Some people suppose 
that this is the same as the commandment 
Jesus gave to his disciples. But there are two 
differences. The old commandment refers to 
your neighbor, that is, to everybody ; the new 
refers to your brother, that is, your fellow- 
Christian. The other difference is in the meas- 
ure of the love — " As thyself '' ; " as I have 
loved you." The world never knew what love 
meant until Jesus came and lived among men. 
" As thyself," leaves self and others side by 
side ; " as I have loved you," carries us away 
beyond that, for Jesus made a sacrifice of 
himself in loving his disciples. 
[231] 



Cl^e Wititt life 



This lesson touches our Hves at very prac- 
tical points. It is not enough for a Christian 
to be a glib, fluent, golden-mouthed talker. 
" If I speak with the tongues of men and an- 
gels, but have not love, I am become sounding 
brass, or a clanging cymbal." It is not 
enough for a Christian to be a great teacher, 
understanding all mysteries and all knowl- 
edge — if he has not love, he is nothing. If a 
man is a great benefactor and if he even be- 
comes a martyr, giving his body to be burned, 
and has not love, all counts for nothing. 
" Love suffereth long, and is kind." That is, 
it bears patiently with others' faults, their 
unkindnesses to us, their ill treatment and in- 
gratitude, and is kind. That is, it continues 
to be kind in spite of the unkindness it may 
receive. The trouble with too many of us is 
that our kindness is spasmodic, is shown only 
when we feel like it, and is checked contin- 
ually by things that happen. But nothing 
ever stopped the flow of Christ's kindness — 
nothing ever should check the flow of a Chris- 
tian's kindness. 

[232] 



Take another line from St. Paul's picture. 
" Love . . . doth not behave Itself unseemly." 
That IS, it never forgets itself, is never rude, 
is not supercilious. Haughtiness is unseemly. 
All uncharitableness is unseemly. Nothing is 
more remarkable in the story of Christ's life 
than his unfailing respect for people. He 
seemed to have almost reverence for every one 
that came before him, even the poorest, the 
lowest, the worst. The reasons were that He 
loved every one, and that He saw in each the 
glorious possibilities of heavenly sonship. If 
we had our Master's lofty regard for, and 
his deep interest in the lives of men, we would 
never act in an unseemly way toward even the 
unworthiest. A poet said he would never have 
for his friend that man who would needlessly 
set his foot upon a worm. If it becomes us to 
treat so considerately, so almost reverently, 
a worm, how should we treat even the poor- 
est, the low^liest, who wears the divine image, 
is a child of God and is " but a little lower 
than God".? 

A newspaper recently gave an account of a 
[233] 



m^t mntv uft 



new society. A good woman boarding in a 
New England town one summer, learned that 
a charitable and kindly feeling was almost 
universal among the people of the town. She 
found that they all belonged to a Take Heed 
Society, and had all pledged themselves to 
three things — to speak no unkind words, to 
think no unkind thoughts, and to do no un- 
kind deeds. This society never met in a body, 
it had no officers, paid no dues, assessed no 
fines. There was a fine mentioned in the 
pledge, but this was to be imposed by the 
oifending person upon himself if he ever vio- 
lated the rules of the organization. He was to 
fix his own fine, making it as large as he was 
able to pay, and the fine was to be paid, not 
to some treasurer, but to the first poor and 
needy person he met. It might be worth while 
to start such a society in some families, in 
some boarding-houses, in circles of friends, 
and even in some churches. It might help 
much in getting the law of love wrought into 
every-day life. 

" Love is not provoked." That is, it does not 
[234] 



become vexed or irritated at what another 
may do or say. Yet many people seem to over- 
look this line of the picture. Nothing is more 
common than ill temper. Some people get pro- 
voked even at things. One tells of seeing a 
boy the other day in a great rage at his bi- 
cycle, from which he had fallen, and beating 
the machine unmercifully. A man awkwardly 
stumbled over a chair, and flew into a violent 
passion, kicking the chair all about the room. 
No other infirmity is so often confessed as 
bad temper. Many people will tell you that 
they find no other fault in themselves so hard 
to overcome. Nor do they seem ashamed to 
make the confession, and apparently do not 
consider the fault a serious one. Sometimes it 
is spoken of apologetically, as an infirmity of 
nature, a family failing, a matter of temper- 
ament, certainly not a fault to be taken seri- 
ously, nor anything more than a matter of 
regret. Ill temper has been called the vice of 
the virtuous. Men and women whose char- 
acters are noble, whose lives are beautiful in 
every other way, have this one fault — they 
[ 235 ] 



m)t Wintv life 



are sensitive, touchy, easily ruffled, easily 
hurt. 

But we make a grave mistake when we let our- 
selves think that bad temper is a mere trifling 
weakness. It is a most disfiguring blemish. 
Jesus set for us the perfect model of living, 
and he was never provoked. We cannot find 
a single mention of his becoming even ruffled 
in temper. He never lost his calmness, his 
repose of mind, his peace of heart. In all his 
life of persecution, wrong, mocking, and in- 
justice he never once was provoked. He would 
have us live the same life. He promises to us 
his peace. When he bids us love one another 
as he has loved us, this certainly is part of 
what he means. 

Loving one another as Christ loves us makes 
it easier for others to live and work with us. 
A minister tells of some persons in his church 
who are excellent workers, full of zeal and 
energy, always doing things, ever active, but 
he says they have always to draw in shafts — 
they will not drive double. There are horses 
of this kind; they will not pull in a team, 
[ 236 ] 



but have to be driven single. It seems there 
are people who have the same infirmity. They 
want to do good, but they must do it by them- 
selves. They will not work with another per- 
son. There is a kind of carriage with only 
two wheels and a seat for one. It is sugges- 
tively called a sulky, because the rider rides 
alone. But the love of Christ teaches us a 
better way. We need to learn to think of oth- 
ers, those with whom we are united in Chris- 
tian life and work. It is so in all associated 
life. It is so in marriage. When two hves are 
brought together in close relations, after hav- 
ing lived hitherto separately, it is evident 
that both cannot have their own way in every- 
thing. There is not room for any two people 
to have their own way in the marriage rela- 
tion. They are now one, occupying only the 
place of one, and they must live as one. There 
must either be the entire displacement of one 
by the other, the losing of the individuality 
of one in that of the other, the giving up of 
one to the other, or else there must be the 
blending of the two hves in one hfe. The lat- 
[237] 



m)t WiUv life 



ter is the true marriage. Both die, the one to 
the other. Love unites them, and they are no 
longer twain, but now one — " two souls with 
but a single thought, two hearts that beat as 
one." 

The same principle should prevail in Chris- 
tian life and work. Headstrong individualism 
should be softened and modified by love. 
Jesus sent forth his disciples by two and two. 
Two working together are better than two 
working separately. One is strong in one 
point and weak in another; the second is 
strong where the first is weak, and thus the 
two supplement each other. St. Paul speaks 
of certain Christians as yokefellows. Yoke- 
fellows draw together patiently and steadily, 
two necks under the same yoke, two hearts 
pouring their love and fellowship into the 
one service. None of us should insist upon 
always having our own way. In community 
of counsel there is wisdom. Jesus says that 
where two agree in prayer, there is more 
power in the pleading, and the prayer will 
be surer of answer. 

[238] 



We know the Importance in Christian hfe of 
being pleasant to Hve with and work with. 
It never should be said of us that other 
people cannot work with us. The secret of 
being agreeable yokefellows is love. This 
means self-losing, self-forgetfulness. The 
Christian who is always wanting to have posi- 
tions of prominence, to be chairman or presi- 
dent or secretary, first in something, has not 
caught the spirit of the love of Christ, who 
came not to be ministered unto, but to min- 
ister. Love never demands the first place — it 
works just as enthusiastically and faithfully 
at the foot of a committee as at the head of 
it. It works humbly, seeking counsel of the 
other members, and not asserting its opinion 
as the only wise one. It seeks in honor to pre- 
fer the other, rather than self. It is content 
to be overlooked, set aside, if only Christ is 
exalted. It is patient with the faults of fel- 
low-workers. It strives in all ways to have the 
Master the real leader in all work. " Love one 
another as I have loved you," is the command 
of Christ. If we love thus we will sacrifice any- 
[239] 



C]^e Wihtt life 



thing, everything, that the Master's name 
may never suffer dishonor. 
This lesson calls us to a love like Christ's In 
building up his kingdom. He loved and gave 
himself; we must love and give ourselves. We 
can be saved only by a sacrificial love. We 
can serve Christ and our fellow-men only In 
sacrificial service. " As I have loved you," 
means loving to the uttermost, loving unto 
the end. We must give our lives for the 
brethren, as Christ gave his life for us. We 
must stop at no cost, no effort, no sacrifice, 
in helping another, in lifting up a life. This 
love to which Christ calls us Is a love that Is 
not affected by the character or the past Kfe 
of the person we love. To love as Christ loved 
is to love the worst, the least worthy, to love 
them until they are lifted up, cleansed, and 
transfigured. 

To love as Christ loved Is to get his love into 
our own lives, to learn to live as he lived, in 
gentleness. In patience. In humility, in kind- 
ness. In endurance, in all sweetness of spirit, 
in all helpfulness and self-denial. It Is not 
[ 240 ] 



easy, but It was not easy for Christ to love 
as he did. The trouble with too much of what 
we call love is that it costs nothing. Is only 
a sort of gilded selfishness. Is not ready to 
sacrifice anything, to give up, to suffer, to 
endure. Oh! profane not the holy name by 
calling such life as this love. To love as Christ 
loves Is to repeat Christ's sacrifice continu- 
ally. In serving, forgiving, bearing, endur- 
ing, that others may be helped, blessed, 
saved. 

That is the love that we are to have in our 
homes, in our friendships, in our business re- 
lations, in our companionships, in our neigh- 
borhood life. Yes, It costs — you must give up 
things and pleasures you greatly want. You 
must make sacrifices. But have you ever 
thought that nothing Is love at all which will 
not sacrifice.^ 



[241] 



Ci^e "Beautt of Ci^ti^t 



[243] 



"/ would he true for there are those who trust me; 
I would he pure, for there are those who care; 
I would he strong, for there is much to suffer; 
I would he hravcj for there is much to dare. 

''/ would he friend of all — the foe — the friendless; 
I would he giving and forget the gift; 
I would he humhle, for I know my weakness; 

I would look up — and laugh — and love — and lift.^ 
— Howard Arnold Walter. 



[244] 



CHAPTER EIGHTEEN 



Ci^e QBeautt of Ci^ttjst 




E have no picture of Christ. 
There are many pictures 
of him which artists have 
painted, some of which are 
wondrously winning. But 
these are only men's con- 
ceptions of him whose life is so loving, so 
pure, so gracious, so true. And after all, it 
is not his human face whose beauty we are to 
seek to get into our lives, but the inner, spir- 
itual grace, the disposition, the qualities of 
mind and heart. 

Perhaps we do not think enough of beauty of 
character and disposition in forming our con- 
ception of Christian life. It is one thing to 
stand up among men and say, " I am a Chris- 
tian," and another thing to grow into the 
loveliness of Christ. Yet the latter is as im- 
portant as the former. One may be altogether 
sincere in confessing Christ, may have come 
[ 245 ] 



ci^e Wititx utt 



out honestly on Christ's side, and yet be full 
of faults, only a beginner, having everything 
of Christian duty yet to learn, and all the 
beautiful qualities of Christian character yet 
to acquire. 

St. Paul tells us that we ought to have in us 
the mind which was in Christ Jesus. That is, 
we are to be like Christ, to have the same 
spirit, the same temper and disposition, the 
same principles. The life of Christ as people 
saw it must be the pattern of our lives. 
We can learn what were the qualities of 
Christ's life by a study of the Gospels. These 
little books not only tell us about Christ, of 
the facts of his life, the works he did, the 
words he spoke — they also show us his sym- 
pathy, his kindness, his helpfulness, how he 
lived, how he endured his contacts with peo- 
ple, how he bore enmity and wrong treatment, 
unkindness, persecution. 

One thing which St. Paul emphasizes as a 
characteristic of the mind that is in Christ 
Jesus is a spirit of love among Christians. 
They should live together in peace, in true 
[246] 



Ci^e OBeautt of Ci^r(j3t 

fellowship. People differ in their tempera- 
ments. They have varying opinions on many 
subjects. Their tastes are not the same. Their 
circumstances are unlike. It is not easy for 
Christian people with such diverse lives to 
live together always in unity. The church at 
Philippi seems to have been peculiarly happy 
in the harmony of its people, but even in this 
church there were differences which marred 
somewhat the perfectness of the fellowship. 
Two women are named who in some way had 
fallen apart in their relations. Formerly they 
had labored together in love, but something 
had happened and they had become estranged. 
This difference between them was a blemish 
on the fair name of the church. Quarrels be- 
tween Christians always sadly mar the spirit 
of a church. Those who love Christ should 
never fail to live together in love. We should 
not insist on always having our own way. 
Perhaps the other person's way is as good as 
ours. Even if it is not as good, it will prob- 
ably do less harm to take it than to have our 
way prevail at the cost of contention and hurt 
[247] 



m^t muv jLffe 



feeling. We must be of one accord, of one 
mind, if we would have the divine blessing on 
our work. 

St. Paul speaks with great earnestness on be- 
half of unity among Christian people. " If 
there is anything in the religion of Christ," 
he says, " I implore you to be of the same 
mind, to have the same love, to be of one ac- 
cord." We know what it is to listen to dis- 
cordant music, instruments not tuned to one 
chord, singers not singing in harmony. The 
discords grate painfully on a sensitive ear. 
So are wrangles, strifes, and contentions 
to a sensitive heart. Think how differences 
among Christians, quarrels, bitter enmities, 
hatreds, must grieve Christ's great heart of 
love in heaven. 

One of the reasons St. Paul gives why the 
good women at Philippi should drop their 
contention is that they may help make full his 
joy. Their strife grieved him. Pastors who 
have gentle hearts understand this. Quarrels 
among their people give them sleepless nights. 
No sweeter joy comes to a faithful pastor 
[248] 



C^e I3eautt of Ci^ttjst 

than that which comes from knowing that 
his people are living and working together 
in love. " Make full my joy," cries this gen- 
tle-hearted pastor, from his far prison at 
Rome, " by getting together, by being of 
the same mind." 

One writes of an artist with a quick eye for 
lights and colors, sitting one day in a cheer- 
less room on the north side of a hotel. He was 
alone, far from hom.e, and somewhat forlorn. 
As he sat and brooded that day, he noticed 
occasional flashings of sunlight coming 
through his window and falling upon the wall 
and ceiling of the room. He could not under- 
stand whence these flashes could come. He 
looked out, and presently saw a flock of 
pigeons flying in the air. The dim flashes of 
sunlight that he saw in his room were reflec- 
tions from the birds' bright wings as they 
flew through the air. St. Paul was now in 
prison at Rome. His friends, away at Phil- 
ippi, could flash joy into his dungeon to 
brighten the gloom. They could do it by lov- 
ing each other. " Make full my joy that ye be 
[ 249 ] 



Cl^e Wi^tv Utt 



of the same mind, having the same love, being 
of one accord, of one mind." 
With very deep earnestness St. Paul lingers 
upon this subject. "Doing nothing through 
faction or vainglory." Faction is a quarrel- 
some spirit, a disposition to think too highly 
of one's self, to desire to rule, to have one's 
own way, not to yield to others, to claim a 
preeminence. Elsewhere the apostle urges 
Christians to be tenderly affectioned one to 
another, in honor preferring one another. If 
we would keep this spirit in our hearts we 
should never assert our opinion too per- 
sistently. Others may as well be right as we. 
We do not have all the wisdom, at least, if 
other people are obstinate and unreasonable, 
that does not give us a right to be obstinate 
and unreasonable too. Now is the time when 
we are specially to keep sweet. Sometimes we 
are advised in the interest of peace, when our 
friend is out of sorts and disposed to be ex- 
acting or disagreeable, to take special pains 
to be unusually good-natured and agreeable, 
making it impossible that there should be any 
[250] 



%^t Tdtautv of €W^t 

friction between us. If other people are hard 
to live with, we must seek to be particularly- 
cordial and genial. The best Christian is al- 
ways the one who will bear the most and keep 
the sweetest. 

Another element in the mind of Christ Is hu- 
mility. " In lowliness of mind each counting 
the other better than himself." It is not easy 
to do this. We are apt to think we are wiser 
than others. Perhaps we are older, or have 
had longer experience. Or we have had a bet- 
ter education, or we are more talented, or we 
occupy a higher position. But these may not 
be infallible tests. God may speak through 
the other, the humbler person, as well as 
through us. We know something of our own 
faults ; we do not know the other person's in- 
ner Hfe, and we are forbidden to judge. 
But suppose we are really wiser and better — 
that will not give us a right to assert our 
superiority, to take the higher places and 
thrust our neighbors down to lower places. 
Humility reaches its best when it is ready to 
serve the lowliest. Noblesse oblige is its law. 
[251] 



m^t WiUv tilt 



If a man is better than his neighbor, why, he 
is to do the more for his neighbor. Jesus 
showed us the spirit of humility when he, con- 
scious of his own divine glory, knowing that 
he was come from God and was going to God, 
performed the lowliest service man could per- 
form, for those who were immeasurably less 
worthy than he was. Superiority means obli- 
gation. The greatest have the most to give, 
and the best have the largest power to help. 
The lesson is a large one. We are to seek to 
have our life in every way like Christ's. That 
is what it is to have in us the mind that was 
in Christ. It is to have the same love, the same 
interest in people, the same spirit of con- 
descension and service. We cannot too often 
repeat the lesson of love as St. Paul wrote it 
for us: 

" Love suff ereth long, and is kind ; love en- 
vieth not ; love vaunteth not itself, is not 
puffed up, doth not behave itself unseemly, 
seeketh not its own, is not provoked, taketh 
not account of evil; rejoiceth not in unright- 
eousness, but rejoiceth with the truth; bear- 
[ 252 ] 



Ci^e QBeaut^ of Ci^rijst 

eth all things, believeth all things, hopeth all 
things, endureth all things." 
These words tell us what the mind of Christ 
is. They were transcribed from Christ's own 
life. He suffered long and was kind. He never 
had an unkind, proud, or envious thought in 
his heart. He loved on through all wrong and 
unkindness. Love in his breast never became 
embittered. We cannot too often study the life 
of Christ to see how he lived. He was always 
gentle. No line in all the story of his life tells 
us of his ever being rude or discourteous. He 
never treated anyone unkindly. He never tired 
of helping others. In the mind of Christ there 
was infinite gentleness. 

In the way Jesus helped others he showed the 
graciousness of his power. There is a way of 
doing good that is arrogant and supercilious. 
Some people are glad to give relief and to do 
favors, but they lack delicacy, and do their 
kindnesses in a way that gives pain to sensi- 
tive hearts. But the mind of Christ shows us 
how to do good in gracious ways — humbly, 
sweetly, beautifully. 

[ 253 ] 



Ci^e WiUt Life 



" Thorns are only leaves that have failed to 
grow, through excessive heat, or lack of 
water, or other unfavorable conditions." 
Thorns were meant to be leaves, bright, beau- 
tiful, useful, but they got a wrong touch and 
turned out sharp, cruel, and offensive. It is the 
same with some people's helpful acts — they 
were meant to be beautiful, to feed the hunger 
of hearts, to comfort sorrow, to cheer dis- 
couragement, to bless men ; but they have 
missed their graciousness. Instead of being 
green leaves, they are thorns, and give pain 
to those they touch. 

There is also perverted service. Here is a 
man who has the reputation of being gener- 
ous, whose gifts to beneficence are widely an- 
nounced from time to time; but it is known 
to those who are familiar with his private life 
that he has a sister living in abject poverty, 
to whom he shows no kindness whatever. Re- 
cently it was announced in the papers that a 
young woman had entered a sisterhood, de- 
voting her life to it by a solemn vow, who in 
doing so left behind her an invalid sister with 
[254] 



Ci^e istautv of Ci^rijst 

no one to care for her, and a brother with a 
family of Httle children and no one to do 
love's duty for them. This girl saw no ab- 
surdity in abandoning these members of her 
own family who needed her so sorely, in order 
to enter a public institution in the name of 
religion, and devote herself to what is called 
a consecrated life. Many times is like incon- 
sistency committed by others. The duty that 
is right by their hand, that is theirs, too, by 
every sanction human and divine, is neglected, 
while they go far away to seek something that 
is not their duty at all. 

Some one says, " Every village has among its 
residents the man who is ready to lend a hand 
in local celebrations, to hoe in a neighbor's 
garden, mend a gate for a neighbor, or split 
kindlings for his neighbor's wife, but who 
leaves his own garden choked with weeds, his 
own gate off the hinges, his own wife to make 
out the best she can with her kindlings with- 
out his aid." Not thus did our Master give 
out his life in service of love. He never with- 
held his hand from human need, but he did 
[255] 



m^t Wintt life 



not neglect his own mother in caring for the 
needs of other homes. He did first duties first. 
We are to have this mind in us which was 
also in Christ Jesus. 

It is the mind of Christ we are exhorted to 
have in us. It is not enough to pick out little 
lovely things here and there in his life and 
imitate them, as one might tie bunches of 
leaves and flowers on a dead branch to give 
it the semblance of life. 

There is a suggestive story or legend of Leo- 
nardo da Vinci. When his great picture, the 
" Last Supper," was finished, it is said there 
was much discussion among the monks as to 
which detail was the best. One suggested this 
and another that. At length they all agreed 
that the best feature was the painting of the 
table-cloth with its fine drawing and rich col- 
oring. The artist was grieved as he heard 
what they said. It had been his wish to make 
the face of the Master so far the most win- 
some feature that it would instantly and over- 
poweringly attract every eye to itself. But 
now his friends praised the table-cloth and 
[ 256 ] 



m^t OBeauti? of €i^ti^t 

said nothing of the Master's face. Taking 
his brush, he blotted from the canvas every 
thread of the cloth, that the blessed face 
alone might win the adoration of all behold- 
ers. Let it be so with us. Whatever draws any 
eye or heart away from Christ, let us blot 
out. " Have this mind in you which was also 
in Christ Jesus." 



[257] 



Ci^e JLatp of ^actiUct 



[259] 



''Tired! well, what of that? 
Didst fancy life was spent on beds of ease, 
Fluttering the rose leaves scattered by the breeze? 
Come ! rouse thee, work while it is called to-day ! 
Coward, arise — go forth upon the way! 

''Hard! Well, and what of that? 
Didst fancy life one summer holiday 
With lessons none to learn and naught but play? 
Go, get thee to thy task; conquer or die! 
It must be learned, — learn it then patiently.^' 



[260] 



CHAPTER NINETEEN 

C^^e JLatD of Sacrifice 




E are taught to present our 
bodies a living sacrifice 
unto God. Ancient offer- 
ings were brought to the 
altar and presented dead. 
The life itself was given 
to God. But the Christian sacrifice is not to 
be presented dead — it is to be given to God 
alive. The life, instead of being consumed 
in a holocaust, or poured out in a bloody 
oblation, is to be given to God for service. 
Christ came to give life to his followers, to 
give life in abundance. This call to consecra- 
tion is therefore a call to life at its best. - 
The whole twelfth chapter of Romans may 
be considered as an interpretation and the 
filHng out of the thought of a " living sacri- 
fice " which St. Paul calls us at the begin- 
ning to make. The wonderful teaching that 
follows explains what these two words mean. 
[261] 



m^t wiut utt 



We are not to be fashioned according to this 
world, but are to be transformed into the 
divine beauty. Our life is to be one of service, 
of love, of devotion. 

We talk a great deal about the love of 
Christ, but we can help the world to know 
what that love of Christ is, only when in 
our daily lives we illustrate it and reproduce 
it. It is our great mission in life to make 
Jesus Christ appear beautiful to others. It 
was said of an earnest, unselfish man, that by 
his own life of devotion he made people fall 
in love with Jesus Christ. It was said of an 
old minister who had retired from active 
service, that it was worth all his salary just 
to have him live in the town. His life was 
such a revealing of the life of Christ that 
wherever he went it was like the shining there 
of a soft, gentle light. 

We are to present our bodies to God as liv- 
ing sacrifices, living, we must remember, not 
dead. To be dead is to have no more power 
to do anything. A little child was talking 
one day in the country about what it was to 
[262] 



Ci^e LatD of Sacrifice 

be dead. His mother was trying to explain 
death to him. He was shown a bumblebee 
that was not living, and then was asked what 
it was to be dead. He said : " Not going any 
more." The child's effort at interpretation 
was really good. To be dead is to be not 
going any more, to be without life, without* 
power to do anything. We are called to be 
living sacrifices. 

To be alive, then, is to be going, to be active. >. 
All true life has in it the quality of sacrifice. 
We cannot love really and not make sacri- 
fices. " God so loved the world that he gave." 
Love always gives — nothing is love that will 
not give. Two people cannot live together 
ideally in the sacred relation of marriage 
and not live sacrificially. There can be no 
friendship worthy of the name without sacri- 
fice. Friendship always costs — its cost often 
is very great; we never know what we are 
engaging to do when we say to a person, 
" I will be your friend." We cannot do good 
to others in any effective way without for- 
getting and denying self in life. 
[ 263 ] 



W^t wmv life 



Victor Hugo has taught the world a great 
deal about true and beautiful life. For in- 
stance, in one place, he is writing of what 
men are by nature : " Men hate, are brutes, 
fight, lie." Then he says : " But share you 
your bread with little children, see that no 
one goes about you with naked feet, look 
kindly upon mothers nursing their children 
on the doorsteps of humble cottages, walk 
through the world without malevolence, do 
not knowingly crush the humblest flower, re- 
spect the needs of birds, bow to the purple 
from afar and to the poor at close range. 
Rise to labor, go to rest with prayer, 
go to sleep in the unknown, have for your 
pillow the infinite; love, believe, hope, live; 
be like him who has a watering-pot in his 
hand, only let your watering-pot be filled 
with good deeds. Never be discouraged. 
Be magi, and be fathers, and if you have 
lands, cultivate them, and if you have sons 
rear them, and if you have enemies bless 
them." 

This is a suggestion of what it means to 
[264] 



€]^e latD of Sacrifice 

present our bodies a living sacrifice, to re- 
peat in our own lives, in our own measure, 
the sweetness, the charity, the kindness and 
the helpfulness of Jesus Christ. The cross is 
everywhere. It has been said that one of the 
best rules for every-day life is to try always 
to be a Httle kinder than is necessary — that 
is, to be a little more self-forgetful than we 
are required to be, a little more patient, to 
go two miles when we are required to go 
only one. The more of the sacrificial quality 
we get into our life the diviner will it be and 
the lovelier. 

When we use the word sacrifice we think first 
of the great sacrifice of Christ which is both 
the model for all Christian life and also its 
inspiration. Everything good and beautiful 
gets its motive from the life of Christ which 
shone with the holiest spirit of sacrifice. We 
look at his six hours on the cross when we 
speak of Christ's sacrifice as if that were 
its one great act and expression. But the 
cross was not endured by Christ merely dur- 
ing those six hours on Calvary ; it was in 
[265] 



m^t Winn JLtfe 



all his life, in every day and hour of it. 
Everything he did was in love, and love is 
always a living sacrifice. He was always de- 
nying himself. We do not have to be crucified 
on pieces of wood to bear a cross. When you 
gave up your own way yesterday for an- 
other's sake, when you kept sweet and patient 
under insult or wrong that hurt you deeply, 
when you did a kindness to one who had 
spoken injuriously of you, when you went 
out of your way to do some gentle thing of 
love in return for an unkindness — you were 
making a living sacrifice. On all his days 
Christ made his life sacrificial. On Calvary he 
only wrote the word out in capitals. 
Ian Maclaren, speaking of the cross, says: 
" Theological science has shown an unfortu- 
nate tendency to monopolize the cross till the 
symbol of salvation has been lifted out of 
the ethical setting of the Gospels, and planted 
in an environment of doctrine." The cross 
stands not merely for the sufferings of 
Christ endured in redeeming the world, but 
also for the law of love and of sacrifice in 
[266 ] 



Cl^e latD of ^acnfice 

every department of Christian living. It 
is not enough to have the cross on our 
churches, as a symbol of redemption, or to 
wear crucifixes as ornaments ; the cross and 
the crucifix must be in the heart. In a private 
letter, a high-school teacher, who only re- 
cently has learned the true meaning of the 
Christian life, tells of a girl who said to 
her one day : " Oh, dear, I have lost my 
crucifix, and I have nothing left but Christ." 
The writer says she herself has been driven 
by circumstances just to Christ, with noth- 
ing else, and in him finds new and wonderful 
revealings every day. He suffices and will 
suffice. It is well when we learn that it is 
in Christ himself, not in any symbols, how- 
ever sacred, that we find the life that has 
power in it. 

The cross must be in the lives of those who 
follow Christ, not branded on their bodies, 
but wrought into their character, their dis- 
position, their conduct, their spirit. We can- 
not live a Christian life for a day without 
coming to points of sacrifice. The cross of 
[267] 



m^t WiUv Hife 



Christ does not take our own cross from 
us — Christ does not bear our cross for 
us. His cross becomes the law of our Hfe, 
and makes it all sacrificial. Every beautiful 
thing in Christian morals and Christian eth- 
ics reveals the cross. The Beatitudes are all 
sacrificial. No one can live the thirteenth of 
First Corinthians and not crucify self con- 
tinually. 

But all sacrifice at length blossoms into v^ 
beauty, sweetness, joy. Never be afraid to 
lose your life in love — you will find it again. 
In the old legend, the thorns of the thorny 
crown became lovely roses on Easter morn- 
ing, every thorn a rose. That is the way 
all our sacrifices are transformed by the 
sacrifice of Christ and the discipline of life. 
The beautiful life is not the one that has 
known only ease, pleasure, self-indulgence. 
The iron that is dug out of the hills as ore 
is not yet ready to be used. It is only ore 
and has to be put through the glowing fur- 
nace where it is transformed into something 
of great value. The same is true of manhood. 
[268] 



Cl^e JLatD of ^aci;ifice 

As Tennyson describes it in " In Memo- 



Lije Us not an idle ore. 

But iron dng from central gloom 
And heated hot in burning fears. 
And dipped in baths of hissing tears, 

And battered with the shocks of doom, 
To shape and use. 

Some of us are forever complaining about 
the hardness of duty — that we have to make 
so many sacrifices for others, that we have 
to bear so many burdens, that we have to 
give up so many pleasant things that others 
may have them, that we have to suffer so 
much that others may not suffer. Will we 
never learn the secret that all our blessings, 
our sweetest joys, our richest comforts, come 
out of the very things that we so chafe and 
fret over? 

George Alfred Townsend, referring to some 
things he saw on an old battlefield many 
years after the dreadful day, says : " I saw 
pretty, pure, delicate flowers growing out of 
[269] 



C]^e ^iDet: life 



the empty ammunition boxes, and a wild rose 
thrusting up its graceful head through the 
top of a broken Union drum, which doubtless 
sounded its last charge in that battle, and a 
cunning scarlet verbena peeping out of a 
fragment of an exploded shell, in which 
strange pot it was planted. Wasn't that 
peace growing out of war? Even so shall 
the beautiful and graceful ever grow out 
of the horrid and terrible things that trans- 
pire in this changing but ever-advancing 
world. Nature covers even the battlefields 
with verdure and bloom. Peace and plenty 
spring up in the track of devouring cam- 
paigns, and all things in nature and society 
shall work out the progress of mankind." 
This is the law of life in Christ. This is 
one of the ways Christ is saving the world. 
We are called to present our bodies as living 
sacrifices to God. The sacrifices are not to 
be made, however, for their own sake. Dr. W. 
L. Watkinson relates that in a London auc- 
tion there was a large sale of all kinds of 
jes of honor — silver stars, gold crosses, 
[ 270 ] 



Ci^e latu of ^actlfice 

jewelled medals celebrating heroisms on 
many historic fields. These were all marks of 
honor for those who had won them. They 
were noble decorations for those on whose 
breasts they had been pinned as tokens of 
personal worth or of costly achievement. But 
imagine anyone buying these badges at an 
auction and then pinning them on his own 
breast and wearing them out among men. 
What could they mean to him? He had not 
won them. They would have been only taw- 
driest tinsel to him. 

Other people's living sacrifices can bring no 
honor for us. They must be our own; the 
honors must be won by our own courage, 
faith and sacrifice. Some people like others 
to make the sacrifices for them and then let 
them get the honor. A great humorist in 
the days of the Civil War used to talk of how 
many of his relatives he had given to his 
country's service. Some Christian people like 
to urge and inspire others to make sacri- 
fices, to give and suffer, while they do noth- 
ing of the kind themselves. But we never 
[271] 



m^t Wititv life 



can have other people's badges of sacrifice 
or decorations of honor pinned upon us. You 
must present your own body as a living sac- 
rifice to God — your own, not another's. You 
must bear the cross in your own life. 



[272] 



leaniing to l^rat 



[273] 



God answers prayer; sometimes^ when hearts are weak, 
He gives the very gifts believers seek, 

But often faith must learn a deeper rest, 
And trust God^s silence when he does not speak; 

For he whose name is Love will send the best, 
Stars may burn out, nor mountains will endure, 
But God is true, his promises are sure 

To those who seek. 

— Myra G. Plantz. 



[274] 



CHAPTER TWENTY 



learning to pxav 




E would say that we do not 
I need to be taught how to 

pray. Anybody can pray. 

It is only talking to God, 

and anybody can do that. 

It does not require the 
learning of a new language in order to speak 
with God, for all languages are familiar to 
him. Men and women who are about to be 
presented at royal courts have to be in- 
structed in court etiquette, so that they 
may conform to the requirements, but there 
is no heavenly etiquette to master before we 
can be admitted into the presence of God, 
to offer our worship, and to present our 
requests. Why then do we have to learn to 
pray.? 

Yet, simple as prayer is and open as the 

door is to all who come to speak to God, 

we do need to learn to pray. The Bible is 

[275] 



m)t WiUt JLffe 



full also of lessons on praying. The disciples 
of Jesus had always prayed, but we are told 
that once when they saw their Master at 
prayer, something so impressed them that 
they felt they never had really prayed. So 
they asked him to teach them to pray. And 
we all need to be taught how to pray. No 
matter how long we have been in the habit 
of praying, nor how much blessing we have 
received in answer to our requests, we are 
only beginners. Every day we should ask 
our Master to teach us some new lesson In 
praying. 

There are certain people who seem to have 
found a secret of prayer which we have 
never yet learned. These favored ones may 
teach us how to pray so as to get richer 
blessing than we have yet received. A little 
child missed her mother at a certain time 
every day. The mother's habit was to slip 
away upstairs alone, and to be gone for some 
time. The child noticed that the mother was 
always gentler, quieter and sweeter after 
she came back. Her face had lost its weary 
[ 276 ] 



iLeammg to pmv 



look and was shining. Her voice was gladder, 
more cheerful. 

" Where do you go, mother,'' the child said 
thoughtfully, " when you leave us every 
day?" 

" I go upstairs to my room," said the 
mother. 

" Why do you go to your room ? " contin- 
ued the little questioner. " You always come 
back with your face shining. What makes it 
shine so? " 

" I go to pray," replied the mother rever- 
ently. 

The child was silent for a little while, and 
then she said softly : " Teach me how to 
pray, mother." 

There are no more sacred moments In any 
home than when a child is bending at a 
mother's knee, learning to lisp its first little 
prayer. A mother's prayers are never for- 
gotten. The boy becomes a man, but in all 
his years of toil, struggle, temptation, duty 
and sorrow, he remembers his mother's early 
lessons in prayer. The childhood prayers 
[277] 



m^t WiUt Life 



themselves are never forgotten. They hve 
on through all the life and often become 
the daily prayer of old age, and are the 
prayers said in dying. 

" When ye pray, say ' Father.' '' That one 
word is the key to the whole mystery of 
prayer. When Jesus taught his disciples to 
speak to God, calling him by that blessed 
name, he gave them the largest of all les- 
sons in prayer. When we can look into God's 
face and say " Father," it is easy to go on. 
The world is different then. God loves to 
be called by that name and it opens his 
heart to hear all we say and to grant all 
that we ask. One writes: 

My little girl, to-night , with childish glee, 
Although her months have numbered not two 

score, 
Escaped her nurse, and at my study door. 
With tiny fingers rapping, spoke to me. 
Though faint her words, I heard them trem- 
blingly 
Fall from her lips, as if the darkness bore 
Its weight upon her, " Father's child,'' No more 
[278] 



learning topm__^ 



I waited for, but straightway willingly 
I brought the sweet intruder into light, 
With happy laughter. 

Such power has the word " father," spoken 
by a child, to open a human heart. Such 
power too, has the name " Father " to find 
and open the heart of God. If we can say 
"Father" when we come to the gate, we 
shall not need to say anything more. If you 
beHeve that God really is your Father, you 
will no longer have any question as to 
whether you may pray to him, or as to how 

to pray. 

You thought before you began to speak that 
you knew what you needed. If only you 
could have that, your bUss would be com- 
plete, you said. But God wanted to make 
your happiness full, and he knew that this 
thing you asked for would not do it. So he 
withheld the wish of your heart in its precise 
form, and gave you the good you needed in 
another way. You prayed that the sick 
friend, who seemed about to be taken from 
[279] 



C]^e WMt life 



you, might be spared. However, death came 
on apace. " Why did not God answer my 
prayer?" Are you sure he did not.^ You 
loved your friend, and wanted the best thing 
that God had for him. Well, did not God 
give him his very best.^ 

One of the first lessons we must learn in 
praying is to submit all our wishes to God. 
Of course we cannot know what we ought to 
pray for as well as God knows. To pray in- 
submissively is, therefore, not to pray ac- 
ceptably. The highest reach of faith is lov- 
ing, intelligent consecration of all our life 
to the will of God. 

^^ Laid on thine altar , my Lord divine, 
Accept this gift to-day^ for Jesus' sake. 
I have no jewels to adorn thy shrine, 

Nor any world-famed sacrifice to make; 
But here I bring within my trembling hand 
This will of mine — a thing that seemeth 
small — 
And thou alone, Lord, canst understand 
How, when I yield thee this, I yield mine 
all. 

[280] 



JLeatntng to pvav 



^^ Hidden therein thy searching gaze can see 
Struggles of passion, visions of delight, 
All that I have, or am, or fain would be — 

Deep loves, fond hopes and longings infinite. 

It hath been wet with tears and dimmed with 

sighs-^ 

Clenched in my grasp till beauty it hath none: 

Now from thy footstool, where it vanquished lies, 

The prayer ascendeth, 'May thy will be 

done ! ' 

" Take it, Father, ere my courage fail, 

And merge it so in thine own will that e'en 
If in some desperate hour my cries prevail. 

And thou give back my gift, it may have been 
So changed, so purified, so fair have grown, 

So one with thee, so filled with peace divine, 
I may not know or feel it as mine own, 

But, gaining back my will, may find it thine.'' 

Some prayers are answered In strange ways. 
Here is a little story recently told. A lawyer 
came to his client and said he could not 
prosecute a certain claim. The client wanted 
to know the reason. The lawyer told him of 
a visit he had made. 

[ 281 ] 



m)t Wihtv life 



" I found the house and knocked, but nobody 
heard me. So I stepped into the Httle hall, 
and through a crack in the door I saw a 
cosey sitting room, and on the bed, her head 
high on the pillows, an old woman. I was 
about to knock again, when the woman said: 
' Come, father, now begin. I am all ready.' 
Down on his knees by her side went the old, 
white-haired man, and I could not have 
knocked then for the life of me. 
" Well, he began. First he reminded God 
that they were still his submissive children, 
and that whatever he saw fit to bring upon 
them, they would accept. It would be hard 
for them to be homeless in their old age. 
How different it would have been if at least 
one of the boys had been spared ! 
" The old man's voice broke then, and a thin 
white hand stole from under the coverlet and 
moved softly through his snowy hair. He 
went on presently, saying that nothing ever 
could be so hard again as the parting with 
the three boys had been — unless mother and 
he should be separated. Then he quoted sev- 
[282] 



leatnmg to |^mt 



eral promises ' assuring the safety of those 
who put their trust in God. Last of all he 
prayed for God's blessing on those who were 
demanding justice." 

The lawyer then said to his client, " I would 
rather go to the poor-house to-night myself 
than to stain my hands and heart with such 
persecution as that." 

"Afraid to defeat the old man's prayer .^^ " 
asked the client, with hard tone. 
" Bless your soul, man," said the lawyer, 
" you couldn't defeat that prayer. Of all the 
pleading I ever heard, that moved me most. 
Why I was sent to hear that prayer I am 
sure I do not know. But I hand the case 
over." 

" I wish," said the client uneasily, " that you 
hadn't told me about the old man's prayer." 
"Why so?" 

" Well, because I want the money that the 
house would bring. I was taught the Bible 
myself when I was a boy, and I hate to run 
against it. I wish you hadn't heard a word 
the old man said. Another time I would not 
[283] 



€]^e Wihtv life 



listen to petitions not intended for my 
ears." 

The lawyer smiled. " My dear fellow," he 
said, " you are wrong again. That prayer 
was intended for my ears, and yours, too. 
God Almighty meant it so. My mother used 
to sing, ' God moves in a mysterious 
way.' " 

" Well, my mother used to sing that, too," 
said the client, and he twisted the claim 
papers in his fingers. " You can call in the 
morning, and tell mother and him that the 
claim has been met." 

God will always find some way to answer his 
children's prayers. We need not trouble our- 
selves as to how he can do this — that is not 
our matter. All we have to do is to lay our 
need before the throne of mercy, and to let 
God answer us as he will. 

Another thing many of us need to learn is 
to widen our prayers. Some of us live in 
a little room without windows and never get 
a glimpse of anybody's needs but our own. 
A minister had a parishioner who did not 
[ 284 ] 



/ 



jHearning to |^mt 



believe in missions. One day he said to him: 
" I am going away for a month, and I have 
a request to make of you. It is that while I 
am absent you will not pray once for your- 
sejf or any of your own family." The man 
promised — it seemed easy. The first evening 
when the time came for prayer he knelt 
as usual, but he couldn't think of anything 
to say. He had always prayed for himself, 
his wife, his little girl, his home, his business. 
Now he must leave out all these, and there 
seemed to be nothing else he cared enough for 
to bring it to God. He discovered how self- 
ishly he had been living. It was a hard 
month for him, but he learned his lesson. 
When his pastor returned he could pray for 
all men, all the world, and for missions. It 
would do many of us good to leave out in our 
praying all requests for ourselves and ours 
for a month. Then our prayers would be 
widened. 

Some of us find life hard. It is full of cares 
and questions, of tasks and duties, of temp- 
tations and dangers. There are thorns and 
[ 285 ] 



m^t Wintt JLtfe 



briers among its roses. There are pitfalls 
in its sunniest paths. The Master's cause 
needs help which we cannot give. If we do 
not know how to pray we never can get 
through the days. The privilege of prayer 
is always ours. The window toward heaven 
is always open. Any moment we can look up 
and say Father ! and instantly the face of 
God will shine upon us and all will be well. 



THE END 



[286] 



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